Is it possible to fit a human life into the space of one book? The famous novel by Veniamin Kaverin, the author of the beloved “Two Captains,” tells the story of a young talented microbiologist Tatyana Vlasenkova. The feeling of first love, the bitterness of the first betrayal, dreams of personal happiness are woven into a single flow of life along with the details of everyday and professional concerns. The writer worked on “Open Book” for about ten years. The magazine publication of the first part (1948) caused a flurry of official criticism - Kaverin so truthfully showed the conditions in which scientific life took place in Soviet times: risk and self-sacrifice on the one hand, the pressure of party ideology on the other. The writer did not betray his moral principles in the most difficult times, and this largely determined the success of his works.