That royally sucks. (Duh) Added to the list.

To sidestep a bit, I'll add Dear Comrade Editor, Reader's Letters to the Soviet Press Under Perestroika. It was from a US university imprint so probably impossible to buy but interlibrary loan'll work.

Quotidian concerns create a pointelist canvas of a people in change. It's the social estrangement side of Steer's coinage and a clue to the source of these desolate Eastern European games*. The painting is one of desperate yearning.

It is the most moving book I've ever read.

 

*There was also that reactor going kablooie, which may have been a small influence.

[edit] Don't read it. I opened it at random and hit two letters. One from a woman explaining how she met the love of her life and at great risk smuggled in a US lesbian magazine in the old Soviet days to see how she'd react (well) and one from a gay man from a gay man anonymously writing to decry 

AIDs something, conflicted feelings, I give up. Crying too hard to keep typing.

<goes and hides to bawl>