A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN

Nikolai, an 84-year-old Ukrainian immigrant in England, finds he’s no match for his new bride, a scheming 36-year-old émigré with “ferocious breasts bursting like twin warheads.” Nikolai’s estranged daughters, Vera and Nada (whom he compares to Trotsky and Stalin), put aside their own feud to extricate the bosomy gold digger from the octogenarian engineer. Sian Thomas narrates this story on several levels, exhibiting impressive technical skill with British, Russian, and Ukrainian accents, and empathetically communicating the comedy and the tragedy as a family history resolves itself without heroics. The experience makes for a knockout audiobook that—like the tractors discussed in the text—rolls along with its own unstoppable transformative power. R.W.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 07]