As a high school senior desperate to escape South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest listened up when a CNN correspondent offered the how-to-be-like-me advice of "Learn Russian." Though she barely knew enough of her mother's native Spanish to communicate with her Abuelita, Stephanie enrolled in Russian at the University of Texas, commencing what would become a four-year, 12-nation tour of the Communist Bloc that shattered her preconceived notions of the "Evil Empire."

In Around the Bloc, Stephanie relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children's shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who avoided radiation clean-up duties at Chernobyl by slitting his wrists, fights to feature the Spice Girls in print, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists who rap about Revolution, and makes difficult realizations about the meaning of democracy and social justice. She also learns how to buy vodka for a Russian dinner party (one bottle per guest plus one), stumbles upon Beijing's underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elian's return to Cuba, and gains new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left behind.

* Selected as the 2007 Mayor's Book Club in Austin Texas

* Won "Best Travel Book of the Year" Award from the National Association of Travel Journalists of America for 2004

* Named a "Substantial Book Read" by National Public Radio, Summer 2005

* Named a "Best Book of 2004" by the San Francisco Chronicle on December 12, 2004

* Featured in the New York Times Book Review's Recommended Summer Reading edition on June 6, 2004

* Featured in USA Today

* Named Texas Monthly Magazine's "Book of the Month" for March 2004

* Named an Editor's Pick/Summer Beach Book by MSN Shopping at
http://shopping.msn.com/columns.aspx?csId=67&page=0

* Named a "Bitch Read" by Bitch Magazine for Summer 2004

* Reviewed in: The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Book Review, South China Morning Post, Texas Monthly, Conde Nast Traveler, Latina Magazine, Hispanic Magazine, Estylo, World Pulse Magazine, Bust, Bitch, Planet Magazine, Houston Chronicle, Orange County Register, Texas Observer, San Antonio Current, Austin Chronicle, Austin American-Statesmen, Corpus Christi Caller Times, Alcalde, The Daily Californian, The Collegian, Savir, SomosPadres, and the Web sites: Latinidad, WomenWriters, PopMatters, Artist-At-Large, and FreeWilliamsburg.

* Interviewed on: Nuestra Palabra's "Latino Writers Having Their Say" on 90.1 FM KPFT Houston, Texas; "A View from the Other Side" on KNON 89.3 FM Dallas, Texas; NPR's "Musica Suave" on KEDT Corpus Christi, Texas; Texas Public Radio's "Texas Matters" KSTX San Antonio, Texas; "Sexto Sol" on KPFT Houston, Texas; "The Jack Riccardi Show" on KTSA San Antonio, Texas; "Public Exposure" on KWPX in Washington State; and the Web site Vagablogging.

* Watch a performance here: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/mbc07.htm

Release Date: March 9, 2004

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