Pushkin’s button

A riveting narrative about the last few months of the Russian poet Pushkin’s life before his fatal duel is an astonishing tour de force of cultural history that reads like a thriller. The rich international, yet very Russian, world of St. Petersburg in the 1830s comes wonderfully to life with its imperial balls, political and literary gossip, and beautiful women, notably Natalya Pushkin, the poet’s wife.