City of Thieves

• Genre: Fiction; historical suspense
• Originally Published: 2008
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: 27 chapters; 258 pages; approx. 8 hours, 28 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: During the siege of Leningrad in 1942, 17-year-old Lev Beniov is arrested when he is caught looting the goods from a dead parachutist. He assumes he will be executed, but instead, a Soviet colonel offers Lev and newly-met cellmate Kolya, an outspoken deserter, a chance at freedom if they can procure an impossible-to-find luxury in the starved city: a dozen eggs for the cake for the colonel’s daughter’s wedding.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Wartime violence; antisemitism; death; sexual exploitation; animal cruelty; profanity; cannibalism

David Benioff (David Friedman), Author

• Bio: American writer, screenwriter, and producer; born in 1970 in New York City and raised in Manhattan; attended Dartmouth College, Trinity College in Dublin, and University of California at Irvine, where he earned an MFA in creative writing; worked on screenplays for Troy (2004) and The Kite Runner (2007) among other films; co-creator of Game of Thrones (2011-2019; television series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series)
• Other Works: The 25th Hour (2001); When the Nines Roll Over (And Other Stories) (2004)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit: