The Taste of Dreams is both a quest for the romantic Russia of the author’s dreams, and a tale of amazement as she discovers and gets caught up in the new, anarchic Russia emerging from its Soviet constraints. At its heart is the story of caviar—beluga, the rarest type of sturgeon, harvested from the Caspian Sea. It is now an endangered species, and no one knows how to—or wants to—stop the plunder. Intelligent, funny, and enormously engaging, this is a modern tour through the intricacies of the new Russia. Vanora Bennett writes for The Times of London and is a former Moscow correspondent for Reuters and the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya.