March Reread - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The writing in this book is so well done that at all time during the reading you feel as if you are there with the title character, experiencing his day with him. The book's focus on a single day shows just how small the world of a prisoner is; how the life of a prisoner is deliberately put together in such a way as to deprive him or her of the free time for anything other than survival. Because the details matter - in this environment, losing track of the details means death.

I seem to remember reading this book in the original Russian back in my university days, and even then it  was easy to see that this book must have been very threatening to the Soviet government. One of these days I will read more of Solzhenitsyn's work too. A modern classic, and highly recommended.