The Thread With Kerri Miller

Courtesy of publisher "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke to Brandy O'Briant from Page 1 Books in Evanston, Ill. Brandy O'Briant didn't choose to read this classic in college — she was assigned it. "I took a class called Absurdity in Literature," she said. "It wasn't a class I was comfortable taking, or wanted to take. I really cared much more about 19th century heroines, but this is something I was required to take." "We read a lot of interesting stuff. We read 'Gravity's Rainbow' and 'The Crying of Lot 49' and things that in hindsight I'm really glad I have read and experienced. But the one book that stuck with me, that I re-read regularly is 'The Master and Margarita.'" "The basic premise is that the devil shows up in [Stalinist-era] Moscow, and he's a very well-dressed, dapper gentleman, who comes with this really motley crew of characters," O'B