Favorite Reads: Russian Literature Choices

Eclectic but thought-provoking, Russian literature affords an air of sobriety and awareness of life and death. Almost half of my favorite reads belong to this genre and these books are regulars on my reading list. I contrive to read Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, and The Master and Margarita at least once a year. Here is the exhaustive list of my Russian literature choices:

1. The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov, Devil disguised as magician causing a havoc in Petersburg, prefer Vintage edition

2. Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky, a study of human conscience and scruple, prefer Constance Garnett's translation

3. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy, a classic love story; prefer Penguin Classics edition

4. Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky's final judgment of man; Vintage classics
5. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky, culmination of his arts and skills; prefer David McDuff's translation

6. Dead Souls: A Novel Nikolai Gogol, a hilarious social humor with dark undercurrents; Vintage classics

7. Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev, an examination of love, family, and Russian nihilism; prefer Richard Freeborn's translation

8. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy, an epic of Russia evoking self-sacrifice, self-indulgence, love, and perdition; prefer Contsnce Garnett's translation

9. The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Dostoevsky, a good introduction to his short work, dive into his profundity of thought, Modern Library Classics

10. The Foundation Pit Andrey Platonov, a scathing indictment of the brutal and anti-intellectual soviet apparatchiki

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