Usual format: Find a book related to the theme, read the book, come along and talk about the book. The following list has been prepared by Ellie with digital assistance for this month's country - Bulgaria! Home of Kukeri (pictured), bagpipers, and many fine literateurs. As always suggestions are just that - suggestions and if you find something different or better, feel free to read that instead. Books by Bulgarian authors 1. Ivan Vazov – Under the Yoke One of the most famous Bulgarian novels. It tells the story of Bulgarian life under Ottoman rule and the struggle for liberation. 2. Emiliyan Stanev – The Peach Thief A beautiful, emotional story about forbidden love during wartime. 3. Georgi Gospodinov – The Physics of Sorrow A modern literary masterpiece about memory, childhood, family, loneliness and nostalgia. 4. Time Shelter – Georgi Gospodinov International Booker Prize winner in 2023. A fascinating novel about memory, nostalgia and a clinic that recreates different decades of the past. 5. Tobacco – Dimitar Dimov A major Bulgarian novel about wealth, political change, ambition and love in the 1930s and 1940s. Books based in Bulgaria 1. The Elusive Mrs Pollifax – Dorothy Gilman A spy adventure featuring the elderly amateur CIA agent Mrs Pollifax, with Bulgaria as part of its setting. 2. Arms and the Man – George Bernard Shaw (1894) • Setting: Bulgaria, during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. • A Swiss soldier takes refuge in a young Bulgarian woman's bedroom. The play makes fun of romantic ideas about war and heroism. 3. What Belongs to You – Garth Greenwell (2016) • Setting: Sofia, Bulgaria. • An American teacher living in Sofia develops a complicated relationship with a Bulgarian man. It explores loneliness, intimacy, identity and desire. 4. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova (2005) • Gothic fiction, historical mystery and thriller. • A search for the truth about Dracula takes the characters through Eastern European history, archives and monasteries. A substantial

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