Fri 10/30/15 Hr 3 JBS: A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir by Lev Golinkin.

"[A] hilarious and heartbreaking story of a Jewish family’s escape from oppression....whose drama, hope and heartache Mr. Golinkin captures brilliantly."
--The New York Times

"An awesome intercontinental whirlwind, funny and smart. Go Ukraine!"
--Gary Shteyngart, bestselling author of Little Failure 

"Golinkin's memoir is a look into life during the Cold War, as well as a coming-of-age-story about finding yourself and where you belong. And reading the harrowing details of his family's exodus will have you counting your own blessings—and hugging the people you love."
--Glamour.com 

"Mr. Golinkin excels at these moments, describing the emotional truth of immigration... His account is so raw that it manages to capture at a visceral level the feelings of many of the million Soviet Jews who left their homeland at the Cold War’s end."
--The Wall Street Journal

"[Lev Golinkin] convincingly relates the purgatory of statelessness, the confused anticipatory state of the immigrant."
--The Chicago Tribune