{"product_id":"koba-the-dread-laughter-and-the-twenty-million-9781400032204","title":"Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million","description":"\u003cb\u003eA brilliant weave of personal involvement, vivid biography and political insight, \u003ci\u003eKoba the Dread\u003c\/i\u003e is the successor to Martin Amis's award-winning memoir, \u003ci\u003eExperience\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKoba the Dread\u003c\/i\u003e captures the appeal of one of the most powerful belief systems of the 20th century -- one that spread through the world, both captivating it and staining it red. It addresses itself to the central lacuna of 20th-century thought: the indulgence of Communism by the intellectuals of the West. In between the personal beginnings and the personal ending, Amis gives us perhaps the best one-hundred pages ever written about Stalin: Koba the Dread, Iosif the Terrible. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The author's father, Kingsley Amis, though later reactionary in tendency, was a \"Comintern dogsbody\" (as he would come to put it) from 1941 to 1956. His second-closest, and then his closest friend (after the death of the poet Philip Larkin), was Robert Conquest, our leading Sovietologist whose book of 1968, \u003ci\u003eThe Great Terror\u003c\/i\u003e, was second only to Solzhenitsyn's \u003ci\u003eThe Gulag Archipelago\u003c\/i\u003e in undermining the USSR. The present memoir explores these connections. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Stalin said that the death of one person was tragic, the death of a million a mere \"statistic.\" \u003ci\u003eKoba the Dread\u003c\/i\u003e, during whose course the author absorbs a particular, a familial death, is a rebuttal of Stalin's aphorism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Martin Amis\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Vintage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/09\/2003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.69lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.02h x 5.22w x 0.69d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781400032204\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/21\/2003 pg. 32\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKliatt\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2004 pg. 37\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMARTIN AMIS \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of 15 novels--among them \u003ci\u003eZone of Interest, London Fields, Time's Arrow, The Information, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Night Train\u003c\/i\u003e--along with the memoir \u003ci\u003eExperience, \u003c\/i\u003e the novelized self-portrait \u003ci\u003eInside Story\u003c\/i\u003e, two collections of stories, and seven nonfiction books. He died in 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44321895940211,"sku":"9781400032204","price":25.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/files\/img_3ee43e45-0e0c-4d80-80a7-5bc0e4379ef6.jpg?v=1771506247","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/koba-the-dread-laughter-and-the-twenty-million-9781400032204","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}