Yeah, it's always so striking reading about Soviet culture how well-read everyone seems to be. I mean, obviously the people who write memoirs are probably going to be well-read people with well-read friends, more so than the general populace maybe, but still I get the impression that this was far more widespread than it is in the contemporary United States.

And so interesting that some American science fictions authors were bigger in the USSR than the US! I knew that there were some American rock stars who hit it big in the USSR but not the US, but I hadn't thought this might be true in other areas too.