The Russian Jerusalem
By Elaine Feinstein
Carcanet £9.95, 124 pages
FT bookshop price: £7.95

Elaine Feinstein’s favourite grandfather had a ginger beard and “blue eyes with deep laughter lines”. “His cardigan sagged at the back and he smelled of peppermint and snuff.” With his stories about “scholars and dreamers, and young men and women dancing together in the forest”, he acted as the young Elaine’s guide to a different world.