Lady Death

The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper

By: Lyudmila Pavlichenko, David Foreman, Martin Pelger, Alla Igorevna Begunova

Narrated by: Emily Durante

In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko left her university studies and ignored the offer of a position as a nurse to become one of Soviet Russia's 2,000 female snipers. Less than a year later, she had 309 recorded kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. She was withdrawn from active duty after being injured. She was also regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort.

She spoke at rallies in Canada and the US, and the folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song, "Killed By A Gun", about her exploits. Her US trip included a tour of the White House with FDR. In November 1942, she visited Coventry and accepted donations of £4,516 from Coventry workers to pay for three X-ray units for the Red Army. She also visited a Birmingham factory as part of her fundraising tour. She never returned to combat but trained other snipers. After the war, she finished her education at Kiev University and began a career as a historian. She died on October 10, 1974, at age 58, and was buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.

©2015 Alla Igorevna Begunova; David Foreman English-language translation copyright 2018 by Greenhill Books; Foreword copyright 2018 by Martin Pegler (P)2018 Tantor

Interesting book with a sub-par nerration

I really enjoyed this book for the most part.You really get a great sense of Lyudmila's perspective on her war experience. She had a really amazing life which is why I wish the narration lived up to her compelling story. I would recomend this book for anyone who is interested in a fresh perspective of the eastern front during WWII.

Lady Death

An absolutely amazing woman with deadly skills.
After listening to this I researched more about her and she was a true hero for Russia.

One of the most amazing stories

This is one of the most amazing stories regardless of historical context, and even more amazing with the context. What she has been through and the modesty of the presentation is difficult to reiterate. I cannot recommend this enough to anyone.

Wow

Absolutely stunning read, it is heroic as it is tragic. There really was nothing like the Eastern Front it was a completely different monster than what the western allies had to deal with. This book dispels a ton of myths surrounding her life, her training, how she enlisted, where she enlisted. Furthermore what sets this memoir apart from so many others is the fact that she is a military-historian and is able to draw insight from her own post- war research which makes her memoirs an absolutely fascinating, well- researched, and well written read. It's super refreshing seeing such an excellent source finally translated into English.

Wow

Amazing book Russian women are definitely some of the strongest in the world. She did so much and always fought for her country. I really wish I got to meet her. That would have been a honor.

Truth is stranger than Fiction

These are the Memoirs of a real life Russian sniper in WW2. It tells the tale a girl/woman starting from life in the Bolshevik factory, personal accounts of the battlefield, touring the United States for propaganda, and her life after the war. If I didn't know this to be an account of real events I would swear I was reading/listening to a Hollywood script.

The Story is Amazing, the Reader...not so much.

Per the recommendation of Katie Quinn at the end of Dimond Eye I selected this book, I am not disappointed in any way by the book itself. This is such a well written and well translated memoir. It really reads like nonfiction, but it is so interesting. However the reader, she is so choppy and makes Lyudmila sound unintelligent. There are pauses after words that do not belong, and I listen at 1.3X speed, I cannot imagine what that would sound like at normal speed. Her reading KILLS the ability for the reader to get into the scene because it is so choppy with little to no inflection.

Fresh perspective WWII readily told in the West

The accents are phenomenal, the detail from beginning to end is clear and informative. Love the element of the biography that becomes stateside incorporates a wonderful part of American History not known to the masses previously. The progression from the onset of WWII and fighting with the Romanians through to the parade route through the Allied territories gives a perspective to known to Americans.

Unbelievable

There is so much of the WWII past that we, Americans, do not know. It was certainly interesting to read about Eleanor Roosevelt - it made me proud of her gutsiness at the time. When will women really be equal to men in history?

gritty, beautiful, and inspiring

I love this book get me on the edge of my seat the entire time the narrator was beautiful and the story was very well put together