Sausalito Library • Russian Tea Provided
Two Russian Bicycles: A Fictional Journey into the Past on Two Novellas consists of two curiously related novellas, both prophetic of the future course of Russian and world history. Based in historical fact, both reveal how the small battles of the hearth, friendship, and love shape history and underlie the effort to remain human in times bedeviled by a brutal destiny. The first novella, Tolstoy’s Wife, depicts Sonya Tolstoy’s struggle for the love of her husband, Leo Tolstoy—a struggle intimately shaped by her belief in the values that inform Tolstoy’s great novels. The second, The Sphynx of Kiev, focuses on the importance of Lenin's character and personal life in shaping the distinctive properties of the two Russian Revolutions at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Bill Broder is the author of A Prayed for the Departed, Crimes of Innocence, Esau's Mountain, What Rough Beast?, Taking Care of Cleo, and The Sacred Hoop, among other books. Broder has also acted as member, Executive Director and Artistic Director of a playwrights workshop, California On Stage, and has completed a number of full-length plays. Abalone! was produced in Carmel, California. His other plays have received staged readings in the Bay Area by Equity actors at the Upstart Stage, The Plays in Progress Series at A.C.T., The Western Stage Theater Company, the New Playwrights Festival, and New Visions Festival. Two of his plays were presented as staged readings at The Second and Third Annual California Studies Conference in Sacramento, California.Professionally, Broder has worked extensively as a free-lance writer, specializing in the writing, design, and production of educational materials for museums, schools, exhibitions, and publishing companies.