Reading Envy 244: 2nd Quarter - Russian Non-Fiction

04/05/22 • -1 min

Lauren W. will be co-hosting this non-fiction quarter of Reading Envy Russia. We share books we have already read and freely recommend, and also chat about the piles and shelves of books we are considering. Let us know your recommendations and where you hope to start in the comments, or join the conversation in Goodreads.

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Books we can recommend:

Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi by Teffi
Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich
The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich
Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Pevear & Volokhonsky
Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich
Voices of Chernobyl (also titled Chernobyl Prayer) by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Keith Gessen
Other Russias by Victoria Lomasko, translated by Thomas Campbell
The Future is History by Masha Gessen
Never Remember by Masha Gessen, photography by Misha Friedman
Where the Jews Aren’t by Masha Gessen
Pushkin’s Children by Tatyana Tolstaya
The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya
Imperium by Ryszard Kapucinski, translated by Klara Glowczewska
A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia’s Most Seductive Spy by Deborah McDonald and Jeremy Dronfield
Putin Country by Anne Garrels
Letters: Summer 1926 by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Rainer Maria Rilke
Sovietistan by Erika Fatland
The Commissar Vanishes by David King
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
The Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum
The Magical Chorus by Solomon Volkov, translated by Antonina Bouis
Shostaskovich and Stalin by Solomon Volkov
The Tiger by John Vaillant
Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan Slaght
How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut
Please to the Table by Anya von Bremzen
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen

Books we are considering:
All Lara’s Wars by Wojchiech Jagielski, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Books we can recommend:

Books we are considering:
All Lara’s Wars by Wojchiech Jagielski, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Previous Episode

Reading Envy 243: Russian Novel Speed Date

It's been a while since I've done a speed dating bonus episode, and this one is all about Russian novels for the Reading Envy Russia novel quarter. I discuss books I tried, what I think of them, and books I read previously. We might be moving on to non-fiction officially, but that doesn't mean we have to leave Russian literature behind forever.

Download or listen via this link:Reading Envy 243: Russian Novel Speed Date
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Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
Or listen on Google Play
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Books discussed:

An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov, translated by Bryan Karetnyk
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
First Love by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Richard Freeborn
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Leo Tolstoy
Oblomov by Ivan Goncherov, translated by Stephen Pearl
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
The Time of Women by Elena Chizhova, translated by Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas
Untraceable by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Marian Schwartz
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
Anna K.: A Love Story by Jenny Lee
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garrett
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by David McDuff
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
City of Thieves by David Benioff
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Bookworm by Mitch Silver
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Fardwor, Russia! by Oleg Kashin, translated by Will Evans

Related episodes:

Episode 228 - Full of Secrets with Audrey
Episode 135 - Speed Dating 2018, Round 5
Episode 113 - Speed Dating...

Next Episode

Reading Envy 245: Looking Back at the Russian Novel

At the end of March, a handful of us gathered to discuss what we had read for the Russian novel quarter of Reading Envy Russia. We also discuss the works we abandoned, some dips into Ukrainian literature, and talked more about what makes a novel quintessentially Russian. Thanks to all who joined in during this chat, in Goodreads, and in social media!

Download or listen via this link:Reading Envy 245: Looking Back at the Russian Novel
Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
Or listen on Google Play
Or listen via Stitcher
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Books discussed:

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read Them by Elif Batuman
The Anna Karenina Fix by Viv Groskop
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, translated by Paul Foote
The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva, translated by Carol Apollonio
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin, translated by Andrew Bromfield
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Marian Schwarz
The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets, translated by Eugene Ostahevsky
Life Went on Anyway: Stories by Oleg Sentsov, translated by Uilleam Blacker
Other mentions: