{"product_id":"red-plenty-9781555976040","title":"Red Plenty","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous.\" \u003ci\u003e--The Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eStrange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called \"the planned economy,\" which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. \u003ci\u003eRed Plenty \u003c\/i\u003eis about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eRed Plenty \u003c\/i\u003eis history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as \u003ci\u003eSputnik\u003c\/i\u003e, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrancis Spufford\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Child That Books Built \u003c\/i\u003eand two other books. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College and lives near Cambridge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50634876813586,"sku":"9781555976040","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e042ab28-85d6-45b1-b0c4-507d527c6878.jpg?v=1732823969","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/red-plenty-9781555976040","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}