I ordered this on Amazon because I know the writer.
I read Paul’s book over a two month period–mostly because Lisa lost it & then I stuck it in a back pack I was not using very often.
I published a review because Paul asked me to–mostly cribbed from the back cover of books that were on my desk, it goes something like:
This is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand one man’s complex relationship with Afghanistan, Post Soviet Russia, and [at some level] Hope–all ancient, battered, and fallen institutions. The Fallen Years deserves to be shelved next to Milt Bearden’s The Black Tulip: A Novel of War in Afghanistan–it’s one of those books that won’t stay in the box. The story is really one long moan and this book is a total pleasure to read. Rogov writes–as almost no other author ever has written–with the authority of a man whose masterful skills would have made him one of the formidable, foremost in any of the events he records.
Which is mostly true–I scribbled at errors in the book a lot, but overall I found it a very fun read.
David Given Schwarm 
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