Alexander Borovsky is a famous art critic, head of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Russian Museum. He is also the author of children's fairy tales. In the book “Don’t Take It Away,” he appears as a memoirist, writer of everyday life, and mocker. The book is written in the ancient but always relevant “table-talk” genre. It includes everyday observations and “judgments of experience,” pictures of morals and “anecdotes of bygone days,” family memories and, as the critic wrote, “Dovlatov-like funny and touching” short stories from the life of the author and his friends. Naturally, most of the book is devoted to portraits of artists and assessments of artistic phenomena. Of course, in the downward, private, unpretentious intonation of “easy talk.” Something is copied from life, something is colored by the author’s imagination - it’s not for nothing that M. Piotrovsky says that “Borovsky’s artists and art turn out to be much more interesting than they really are.” The author called one of his previous books, dedicated to the history of art of the last century, “an easy course.” “Can't Take It Away” is an unexpected, poignant, unboring testimony to the everyday and intellectual life of an entire generation.