Samuel Beckett once declined an interview because, he said, he had “no views to inter.” On the other hand, Svetlana Alexievich’s “The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II” is made up of conversations with women who have waited their entire lives to speak. This book is an outpouring, a deluge. Roughly a million Soviet women fought in World War II. Dozens of them, in this volume, gather around Alexievich as if she were a sentient campfire. For more detail about this book click here.