Classic and Contemporary Russian Literature

New 3/09

The Essential Tales of Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
A collection of more than 200 of Chekhov's best short stories includes favorites such as "The Lady with the Dog" as well as lesser-known works, all arranged chronologically from 1886 to 1899.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Three sons of an old drunkard search for faith in God.

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol by Nikolai Gogol
A new translation offers 13 satirical and fantastic stories of downtrodden characters who are set upon by the powers that be.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A novel that studies the moral disintegration of a man whose obsessive desire to possess his stepdaughter destroys the lives of those around him.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Yuri Zhivago, doctor and poet, lives and loves during the first three decades of 20th-century Russia.

One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One day in 1951, Ivan Denisovich continues the rituals he has created during eight years' imprisonment in a Stalinist labor camp in Siberia.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A new translation of the classic 19th-century Russian novel in which a young woman is destroyed when she attempts to live outside the moral law of her society.

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Bazarov, a nihilist, advocates a materialistic view of life and disappoints his adoring parents.

Contemporary

The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin (Mystery)
When a young student from a wealthy family commits suicide in the Alexander Gardens, Erast Fandorin of the Moscow Police investigates the supposedly open-and-shut case and discovers that the student's suicide is not an isolated case.

Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (Science Fiction)
The "Others," a mysterious ancient race of humans possessing supernatural powers, who swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light, have long lived together in an uneasy truce, until the emergence of a young boy with extraordinary powers fulfills an ancient prophecy and threatens to plunge Earth into a catastrophic war between Dark and Light forces.

Dreams Of My Russian Summers by Andrei Makine
Andrei spends evenings with his grandmother in the Russian village of Saranza, and she tells him of her life in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century before she came to Russia and fell in love with his grandfather, who died during World War I.

What Happened to Anna K? by Irena Reyn
Married unhappily to a prominent member of her tight-knit Russian immigrant community, vivacious Anna K. engages in a reckless affair with an outsider on whom she has pinned fleeting hopes for freedom, while in a neighboring community, Bukharian-Jewish pharmacist Lev harbors a consuming love for Anna's cousin.

Absurdistan by Gary Shyteyngart
Hoping to get out of Russia and return to his adopted home in the U.S., Misha Vainberg, the obese son of a wealthy Russian, makes his way to Absurdsvani, a small unstable country on the brink of civil war, where he becomes embroiled in the ridiculous conflict, risks his life, and falls in love, all the while plotting to somehow get to America.

Petropolis by Anya Ulinich
Abandoned by her father and struggling through adolescence under the shadow of her overbearing mother, Jewish-Siberian teen Sasha has a baby with a nihilistic homeless alcoholic and becomes a mail-order bride as part of her quest to find her father in America.

Memoirs of a Muse by Lara Vapnyar
Obsessed by Dostoevsky and the woman who became his muse, Tanya emigrates to New York City from the former Soviet Union and falls in with Mark Schneider, a writer for whom she is determined to be both lover and source of inspiration.

Monumental Propaganda by Vladimir Voinovich
The first novel in 12 years by the satirical author finds Aglaya, a believer in Stalinism, centering her life on the dictator's methods in spite of her provincial community's political ideologies.