Skip to main content

Top Ten Tuesday-Free Week!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.

This week's topic is a freebie so I decided to make a list of my Top Ten Favorite Books About Russia.  As I am sure you noticed I am fascinated by all things Russian (I even have a master's degree in Russian Studies).  Some of these books are fiction and some are non-fiction but they are all excellent and very readable (I didn't include any scholarly works on the list).

1.) Kolyma Tales by Varlaam Shalamov-This is a book of short stories about life in the Gulag.  It is heart-breaking and eye-opening.
2.) War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy-This is Russian Literature at it's best.  Do not be intimidated by the length; the story is fantastic!
3.) The Romanovs by W. Bruce Lincoln -This book tells the story of the Romanov family from it's very beginnings in 1613 to the end in 1917.  It is a big book but it reads like fiction.
4.) Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes-This is a cultural history of Russia.
5.) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky-My all-time favorite work by Dostoevsky!
6.) Journey into the Whirlwind by Yevgenia Ginzburg-A memoir of life in the gulag that provides a woman's perspective on the camp system.
7.) Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
8.) Gulag by Anne Applebaum - Everything you ever wanted to know (and didn't want to know) about the gulag (Russian concentration camps).
9.) The Unquiet Ghost by Adam Hoschild-This book is an interesting look at Stalin's legacy in modern day Russia.
10.) Kremlin Rising by Peter Baker and Sarah Glasser-A look at Russia under Putin.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Deb Nance at ReaderbuzzJanuary 24, 2012 at 6:21 AM

    I like how you used your specialized knowledge for the benefit of all of us readers out here. Thank you.

    Here is my It's Top Ten Travel Narratives. I hope you will stop by!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnneJanuary 24, 2012 at 8:09 AM

    After reading The Bronze Horseman I have been thinking about reading some more about Russia. Thanks for this great list of books to pick from!

    ReplyDelete
  3. ShoshanahFebruary 4, 2012 at 8:30 PM

    I definitely need to refer back to this! While I do enjoy learning & reading about Russia, I honestly don't know where to start. But I definitely like the way The Romanovs sound and think I'd probably enjoy it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review and Giveaway: "Distant Signs" by Anne Richter

Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over
Post a Comment
Read more

Mailbox Monday (49)

It's time for another Mailbox Monday post!  Once again I could not resist the cheap ebooks that Amazon and Barnes and Noble were promoting this week.  I really need to stop!  I already have more than I can read.  I also was able to spend a little time browsing at the library and I came home with a nice stack of books.  These days, I hardly ever get to spend time at the library by myself for more than a minute or two so it was wonderful to have time to just wander and see what I could find. Purchased (for kindle): The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford The One I Was by Eliza Graham House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty   Purchased (for nook): One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore  Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams From the Library: The Messenger by Daniel Silva   The Ripper's Wife by Brandy Purdy Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Brazen by Katherine Longshore What books did you get this week?
15 comments
Read more

Mailbox Monday (78)

 Happy Sunday everybody!  September is over and I can hardly believe it.  It seems as though the month has flown by.  Now I'm excited for fall and all of the upcoming holidays.  October is the start of my favorite time of year and I'm hoping there will be plenty of room for reading in between all of the upcoming events. I requested some new holiday books from the library and had no idea all of my holds would come in at once so I need to get moving on these.  I'm really excited to dig into some sweet, fluffy reads and these will do just the trick. From the Library: A Snow Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller This is the fourth book in a series that I really enjoyed so I'm eager to get started on it. Holly and Ivy by Fern Michaels The Christmas Room by Catherine Anderson I was so intrigued by the cover on this one that I had to pick it up. For Review (from NetGalley): I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon     I really need to st
13 comments
Read more