Open Mic Night in Moscow: And Other Stories from My Search for Black Markets, Soviet Architecture, and Emotionally Unavailable Russian Men

Kazakhstan, Belarus and Siberia are not the typical tourist destinations of a twentysomething, nor the places one usually goes to eat, pray and/or love.

But the mix of imperial Russian opulence and Soviet decay, and the allure of emotionally unavailable Russian men, proved strangely irresistible to comedian Audrey Murray.

While her friends were settling into corporate jobs and serious relationships, Audrey was on a one-way flight to Kazakhstan, the first leg of a nine-month solo voyage through the former USSR.

A blend of memoir and offbeat travel guide (black markets in Uzbekistan: 5 stars; getting kidnapped in Turkmenistan: 1 star) this thoughtful, hilarious catalogue of a young comedian's adventures is also a diary of her emotional discoveries about home, love, patriotism, loneliness and independence.