Spring Read

Thais of Athens was first published in Russia in 1972. Since that time, it has sold over a million copies and has become one of the most popular historical novels in the former Soviet Union. In difference to other famous novels of Ivan Efremov, like The Land of Foam and The Heart of the Serprent, his last work Thais of Athens was never translated into English and we are truly excited about its “rebirth” 37 years after it was written. Set in the era of Alexander the Great, the book tells a story of an Athenian hetaera Thais, whose fascinating image captured our hearts and minds. Her adventures, masterfully described by the author, hold your attention from the very first page and make you fall in love with the heroine.

Each year, the flowering of cherry blossoms marks the beginning of spring. But if it weren't for the pioneering work of an English eccentric, Collingwood "Cherry" Ingram, Japan's beloved cherry blossoms could have gone extinct. Ingram first fell in love with the sakura, or cherry tree, when he visited Japan on his honeymoon in 1907 and was so taken with the plant that he brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England. Years later, upon learning that the Great White Cherry had virtually disappeared from Japan, he buried a living cutting from his own collection in a potato and repatriated it via the Trans-Siberian Express. In the years that followed, Ingram sent more than 100 varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe. As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.