I seem to recall that earlier this year I said I was going to stay away from challenges (well..more or less). I guess I can rationalize joining Ex Libris's Russian Reading Challenge because it is technically not until next year? It's one of those situations where I think, surely I can read four books within the span of a year, right? Mostly I joined as I have been intending to read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. As everyone else is making up lists of possible reads, I thought I might do the same. Some are books I own already and others I hope to find used or borrow from the library. While I don't plan on reading more than four (well, I hope to read four anyway), it's always nice having a group of books to choose from.
- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
- Torrents of Spring, Ivan Turgenev
- Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
- Fifty Russian Winters, Margaret Wettlin
- Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Enchanted Wanderer: Selected Tales, Nikolai Leskov
- White Walls: Collected Stories, Tatyana Tolstaya
- Peasants and Other Stories, Anton Chekhov
- The Time: Night, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
- Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
- Metro Stop Dostoevsky: Travels in Russian Time, Ingrid Bengis
- War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (the new Pevear/Volokhonsky translation)
- First Love, Ivan Turgenev
As I was making my list I realized that not many of my authors were women. Surely there are famous Russian women authors? I found a few on my shelves, but they are mostly contemporary writers. Wettlin wrote a memoir about living in the Soviet Union in the 30s (she was American married to a Russian). I believe both Tatyana Tolstaya and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya are fairly popular writers in Russia today. Ingrid Bengis is the daughter of Russian emigres and wrote a nonfiction book about St. Petersburg. I know I should read Dostoevsky--I haven't since high school--but his works sound so heavy. Of course there is always Boris Akunin, who writes detective stories featuring quirky (my impression) Erast Fandorin. There's lots of time to think over possible reads. Any favorite Russian authors you can suggest?