david benioff

A Game of Chicken

City of Thieves by David Benioff

March 2, 2024 by Zirza 3 Comments

Seventeen year old Lev lives alone in Leningrad. It’s 1942 and the siege is in full swing; Lev’s mother has left the city with his younger sister. Lev’s father, a renowned poet, has been dispatched by the NKVD years ago into an unmarked grave, and so Lev lives alone in his apartment building, with people who share his fate but that aren’t his friends. There is little more to do for Lev than read chess manuals and focus on the all-encompassing hunger he feels. One […]

“Those Words You Want to Say Right Now? Don’t Say Them.”

City of Thieves by David Benioff

March 3, 2021 by Ale 3 Comments

Because I’m always a billion years behind popular culture, I had no idea that the David Benioff of the Game of Thrones TV show was also an author. And a good one! In applying for a freelance job that wanted an analytical summary of the first three chapters of City of Thieves, I was hooked and had to read the whole thing. I didn’t get the job, but I really enjoyed the novel. City of Thieves is a historical fiction surrounding the siege and starvation of […]

Not as good as ‘City of Thieves,’ but still pretty good.

June 17, 2015 by narfna Leave a Comment

I holy-shit-loved David Benioff’s second book, City of Thieves, back when I read it in 2009, and I’ve been book-pushing it to friends ever since. (FYI, they’ve all loved it, too.) But I never got around to reading his first book until now (partly because it’s kind of hard to track down–also, I’ve never seen the film, which is apparently pretty great). Ultimately, The 25th Hour was kind of a let down for me, but I say “kind of” because, a) it was really well-written, and b) really short. […]

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