Guest-blogging at upcoming4.me

 My recent guest blog post for Upcoming4.me  details some of the story behind writing and researching The Age of Ice:

Memories of Ice
The Age of Ice started about six years ago, with me reading The New Yorker article by Elif Batuman, The Ice Renaissance. The article discussed two episodes in Russian history separated by two hundred and sixty six years. One — the building in the winter of 1740, upon the order of the empress Anna Ioannovna, of a palace made entirely of ice, where two of the empress’s jesters were forced to spend their wedding night. The other episode — building of a replica of that palace on the same site in the winter of 2006, and its popularity with St. Petersburg’s denizens.
Read the full post here: Upcoming4.me