Fiction Mondays: City of Thieves

My book-devouring streak continues! No, not literally devouring (although head over here for a strange look at edible books) but reading at an insane pace. I just read David Benioff's City of Thieves: A Novel this weekend. I stayed up late last night reading it because I couldn't put it down.

Benioff is the author of The 25th Hour, which takes place in one night. This one takes place over the course of a few days during the seige of Leningrad. He can really pace a book. The plot concerns the author's grandfather, who gets caught for looting from a dead German and is told they will let him live if he (with the help of a similarly-sentenced deserter) can procure a dozen eggs for a high-ranking Soviet colonel. He needs them to make a wedding cake for his daughter. The problem is, the whole city is on food rations and no one has seen an egg in six months. They end on a brutal trip through the city and across enemy lines, encountering cannibals, Nazis, and partisans. It's a really incredible book, with one of my favorite first sentences in awhile. Read it.

Meanwhile, I'm still putting my revisions into the manuscript. I added a chapter, took some things out, added some more. The problem with putting the changes in is that you always find some things that you missed. It's not a problem, really, just something that happens as you go. Soon, I will have a second draft.