One of the books Poppa Goldberg gave me for Christmas is the official court proceedings in “The Case of the Anti-Soviet ‘Bloc of Rights and Trotkyites,’ published by the Peoples Commissariat of Justice of the USSR.

In english: it’s the verbatim transcript of a round of show-trials. As my dad says in the inscription to me, “What a patehtic travesty for browsing!”

He bought it from an oddball street-seller in his neighborhood. I must be the only kid on the block who got one of these.