Books from Russia
102 popular russian books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Europe Challenge" were written by authors from Russia.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
71.
The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy EN
Description:
This 1862 novel, in a vibrant new translation by Peter Constantine, is Tolstoy’s semiautobiographical story of young Olenin, a wealthy, disaffected Muscovite who joins the Russian army and travels to the untamed frontier of the Caucasus in search of a more authentic life. While striving to adopt the rough and ready lifestyle of the local Cossacks, Olenin falls in love with a free-spirited girl whose fiancé turns out to be a formidable opponent. Showcasing the philosophical insight that would characterize Tolstoy’s later masterpieces, this long overdue translation is a revelation.
72.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy EN
Description:
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of ... continue
73.
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov EN
Description:
A spellbinding novel set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s classic Galactic Empire series and Foundation series Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled. The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will. You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love. Eternals weren’t supposed to have feelings. But Andre... continue
74.
75.
The Genius Under the Table : Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin EN
Description:
Eugene Yelchin recounts growing up in Cold War Russia.
76.
The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy EN
Description:
A cumulative tale in which the turnip planted by an old man grows so enormous that everyone must help to pull it up.
77.
The Girl from the Metropol Hotel : Growing Up in Communist Russia by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya EN
Description:
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography The prizewinning memoir of one of the world’s great writers, about coming of age as an enemy of the people and finding her voice in Stalinist Russia Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel—the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles—Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. In The Girl from the Metropol Hotel, her prizewinning memoir, she rec... continue
78.
The Helmet of Horror : The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin EN
Description:
A postmodern, radical retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur
79.
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine : A Novel by Alina Bronsky EN
Description:
“In this acidly funny novel” of life in Soviet Russia, “a cruel comic romp ends as a surprisingly winning story of hardship and resilience” (The New Yorker). A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A German Book Award Finalist A Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal Favorite Read of the Year When Rosa Achmetowna discovers that her seventeen-year-old daughter, Sulfia, is pregnant, she tries every bizarre home remedy there is to thwart the pregnancy. But despite her best efforts, the baby girl Aminat is born—and immediately wins Rosa’s heart. The dark-eyed Aminat is a Tartar through and thro... continue
80.
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky EN
Description:
Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnett translation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought by Garnett’s drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much as possible the syntactical structure... continue