“Candid, unsentimental and extremely funny. I read it in one glorious go, laughing and crying throughout.” —Zoë Heller

“A deeply moving, beautifully written, and transforming story.” —Greg Mortensen, author of Three Cups of Tea

"A magnificent inquiry into the human condition." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Impressive. . . The best book written on this subject.” —Noam Chomsky

“[A] study as lively, lucid and flat-out enjoyable as any literary biography this year. . . . Never before has Kafka seemed endearing; never before has he even seemed appreciably human. Mr. Begley’s triumph is to revive the man beneath the iconography, and to present afresh for a 21st-century audience that maddening, addled soul in all its twitchy glory.” —New York Observer

“[A] sympathetic, profoundly humanizing biography . . . [Francine] du Plessix Gray offers a timely mediation on female power, and an inspiring profile of one woman’s courage.” —Caroline Weber, Vogue

“White’s abiding kinship with Rimbaud gives this restless soul’s well-traveled tale new fire.” —Vanity Fair

“In a strongly-written, fascinating, and original book, Jonathan Brent interweaves portraits of Russians in their daily lives with an astute analysis of Joseph Stalin's legacy.” —Philip Roth