Cav's Reviews > Deputy Mayor Putin

Deputy Mayor Putin was a well-done short presentation. It is an audiobook, so I won't include any quotes from the book, as my reviews usually have.

The book follows the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin, from relative obscurity in the ranks of the KGB, to becoming the most powerful man in Russia. The author mentions that Putin contemplated driving a taxi in the 90s after the KGB wasn't paying him. In Soviet times, the workers pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay them.

I felt that the audio presentation worked here. The narration was nicely done, and the book includes quotes from many authors, pundits, and commentators. There was lots of content from Putin: His Life and Times author Philip Short.

The formatting of the book is broken into 8 parts, following a chronological trajectory. Fortunately, its short length means that a lot of the filler that typically accompanies longer books was left out. Somewhat counterintuitively - I typically find that I get more from shorter books than I do from longer ones. Often longer books tend to drown the reader in a sea of minutia; effectively losing the forest for the trees...

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I enjoyed this short audiobook. I would recommend it to anyone interested.
4 stars.