Books, Arts & Manners: Party Rule or Golden Rule?

Against the Grain: An Autobiography, by Boris Yeltsin, translated by Michael Glenny (Summit Books, 263 pp., $19.95)

SHORTLY AFTER Leonid Brezhnev’s 1981 “autobiography” was published, a Moscow dance company converted it into a ballet. One astounded Soviet émigré commentator demanded, “And who gets to dance the part of Brezhnev? They will all probably have to take turns for the honor!”