Not sure about this. It's certainly an amusing travel book. The author writes of his travels in Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Wall in a Trabant with his recently widowed aunt whose husband was a senior KGB official involved in all the crucial post-war events in the region accompanied by a pet pig. Or so he tells us. It soon becomes apparent that we are reading a set of weary anecdotes displaying familiar views of the old Soviet Bloc. The author himself seems to weary of the device he created as he puts himself and his aunt on a train to Moscow to celebrate Victory Day 1987 having left Romania in 1989. He certainly runs out of steam as the book progresses. Take away the novelty of his companions and the book turns into a well worn set of clichés. ( )

Rory MacLean takes us on a very individual tour of the countries that had been behind the iron curtain in the aftermath of the wall coming down in 1989. It is a sort of travels with my aunt tale, with a pig on the journey too. Winston the pig accompanies him and his aunt on the journey through Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania in a Trabant and by train to Russia.
He gives us snapshots of what is changing in these countries and some history of what had happened during the period of the Soviet Block and he gives this from a perspective of some of the people he meets with his communist aunt, these are often other relatives.
It is sometimes funny and farcical and also moving. He does not make fun of the people they meet who are struggling, he tells the story of how it is for them, the toughness of life for many people and the joy that people find in living and in freedom. ( )

loving this so far. Loved it.

Here is the author. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvjMAD6ZzfM

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