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Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club)
Leo Tolstoy
Penguin Classics, 2004
Big and beautiful...
Anna Karenina is probably the most detailed work on relationships, families, society, and spirituality ever written... It is detailed to the point of being its own universe - and one that moves with the consistency of a fine tuned machine. One can only approach such a ...
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
Knopf, 2007
Only imposing in length.
I found my way to Tolstoy circumvently by way of other Russian authors. It seems all roads lead to the count one way or another when it comes to Russian literature.
Certainly in my youth the expression, "It isn't 'War and Peace'!" was a sarcastic and thoughtless ...
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City of Thieves: A Novel
David Benioff
Viking Adult, 2008
A thrilling and deeply moving historical adventure.
This is an enormously entertaining and illuminating novel. In addition to being a cracking good read with engaging characters and an action-packed story, it's also a window into a place and time that not enough Americans know about. Benioff's depiction of WWII era ...
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The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
Vintage, 1996
The Master and Margarita (Review)
Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita provides a scathing social commentary on life in Russia during Stalinism. This Gnostic work taking place in the 1930s serves as an excellent new historical look on life under Socialism. Bulgakov's masterpiece, which was ...
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Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk: A Novel (Mortalis)
Boris Akunin
Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008
Excellent historical amateur sleuth (
In the late nineteenth century in Zavolzhsk, Russia late at night a terrorized monk arrives at the abode of Bishop Mitrofanii shouting and weeping simultaneously as he struggles to explain that something has gone terribly wrong at the Hermitage. The Bishop seeing his ...
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The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002
Best Transaltion!
I've read The Brothers Karamazov in an least four translations now, and this is an absolutely delicious translation, the very best. Pevear and Volokhonsky bring great, suggestive depth, and great subtlety to the English text of this very great Russian novel.
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Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vintage, 1993
Crime and Punishment
What can I say that hasn't been said already?
This is probably the best fictional study of the effects of guilt and radical ideas on a troubled mind. The prose is flowing, and it's not hard to see why Dostoevsky considered his novels "poems".
Dostoevsky's works in ...
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Crime and Punishment (Enriched Classics)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Pocket, 2004
A great novel
This is, of course, one of the great novels of all time. Fyodor Dostoyevsky created a number of truly wonderful works over time, such as "The Brothers Karamazov," "The Gambler," and "The Devils" (or "The Possessed"). The "Translator's Introduction" to "Crime and ...
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Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love
Lara Vapnyar
Pantheon, 2008
Elegant Gems
Ms.Vapnyar has created here six elegant gems which cover the hopes, dreams and disappointments in the Russian emigree community. However, despite this focus on the Russian community in America these stories are universal, which is what makes them most memorable.
The ...
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The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners (Penguin Handbooks)
Nicholas J. Brown
Penguin (Non-Classics), 1996
Best foreign language learner's book, bar none
I have studied on my own at various levels of seriousness 6 languages in my life, (some to the extent of becoming fully fluent, some becoming basically conversational, and some starting and giving up out of disinterest or dislike for the language in general) and amid ...
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Notes From Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Signet Classics, 2004
Move over Freud
As I was reading Part I, I thought I ought to burn the book to save myself, or possibly end up throwing myself out the window as the underground man longed to be trashed. For 34 pages he went on and on and on about the hideousness of human nature and existence. No ...
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Crime and Punishment (Signet Classics)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Signet Classics, 2006
A Hard Read
This book is excellent but readers should take the time to read the Translator's Preface before jumping in. This will help to understand the names of the characters and other nuances that apply to a book translated from another language. The book is about redemption. ...
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English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary
Kenneth Katzner
Wiley, 1994
Best for American English
This dictionary is the best for American students because it's based on American English. Other dictionaries are based on British English (which means that they include some words American students don't use, and leave out some idiomatic expressions that American ...
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Twilight Watch
Sergei Lukyanenko
Miramax, 2007
Twilight Watch
This is an excellently written book, and the Russian/English Translator has done a great job with it. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a great book to read. My wife, ReynaVoop turned me on to this series, and as always, she was right about this book.
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Antarktos Rising - A Novel
Jeremy Robinson
Breakneck Books, 2007
a great surpize
This is one book you can not put down. It is fast paced and a great read. I had to order the rest of his books just to see if he will be a great writer as I believe he will be.
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