The book with the enticing title “The Magic Shop” by the famous Russian playwright and screenwriter Anna Rodionova includes stories and novellas that, to one degree or another, touch on the theme of our strange viral time. The plots are sometimes like harbingers of a future pandemic, sometimes they are episodes of reality, of which we are all participants. The author elegantly and simply speaks to the reader about what concerns us every day, when everyday life is spent in small feats that we perform unnoticed even to ourselves. According to actress Margarita Terekhova, Anna Rodionova “knows not only the most important things about us, but also where we come from...”