Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg

June 26, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Translated from the Russian by Paul Stevenson and Manya Harari. Persephone Books, 2014. Originally published 1967. 344 pgs. Purchased. In February 1937, a professor, journalist, and proud member of the Communist Party in Kazan named Eugenia Ginzburg was arrested for failing to denounce her fellow professor, Nikolay Naumovich Elvov. Ginzburg, whose non-Latinized name is often spelled as Yevgenia or Evgenia, was accused of participating in Elvov’s counter-revolutionary Trotskyist group through her position on the editorial board of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Europe, Nonfiction, Persephone Books, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Eugenia Ginzburg

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part Two)

March 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. This post includes my thoughts on Part Four through the Epilogue of Dostoyevsky’s most famous work. For my thoughts on Parts One through Three, please see this post. As the end of Part Three, the main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov had awoken to find an unknown yet aristocratically dressed man standing over […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part One)

February 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. Arguably Dostoyevsky’s most famous work, Crime and Punishment is divided into six parts plus epilogue. Given the novel’s length and (assumed) difficulty in reading, my book club decided to split the book at the halfway mark and discuss it at two meetings. Our February meetup covered Part One to Three, which […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov

September 30, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 2011. 128 pgs. Library copy. In a remote part of Kazakhstan, Soviet scientists and military personnel test atomic weapons as they race to catch up to the Americans. A young boy named Yerzhan lives near the test site with his mute mother, grandparents, and the daughter of their only neighbors. His grandfather discovers he is a child prodigy with instruments, including the violin, and […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Fiction, Peirene Press, Russian, Translated • Tags: Andrew Bromfield, Hamid Ismailov

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

October 18, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Russian. Bantam, 1963. Originally published 1962. 203 pgs. Purchased. This story follows Ivan Denisovich Shukhov through a course of a single day in his life as an inmate in a Soviet forced labor camp. An innocent man, Ivan was accused of becoming a spy after capture by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II and sentenced to the Siberian work camp as punishment by the government. The novel is one […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2012 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Nobel Prize, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Part Four)

December 30, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Project Gutenberg, 2010. Originally published 1877. 1,441 pgs. Free download. I finished Anna Karenina! I am both elated and relived as I managed to tackle a fear of Russian literature and finish a classic piece of (translated) literature spanning 1,441 pages. What a way to end 2011! This post covers Part Six to the end of the final section, Part Eight, and will include spoilers because I cannot resist discussing the […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Chunkster, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Readalong, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Part Three)

December 17, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Project Gutenberg, 2010. Originally published 1877. 1,441 pgs. Free download. Trying to read Tolstoy’s tome on a bus at 1 a.m. was not my brightest idea and thus I fell off the read-a-long bandwagon back in November at Week Five. When I fall behind, I fall behind. I spent this past weekend catching up and I am now at the start of Part Six, which was supposed to be the check-in […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Chunkster, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Readalong, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Part Two)

November 9, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Project Gutenberg, 2010. Originally published 1877. 1,441 pgs. Free download. Although most the quotes I highlighted dealt with our title character, she did appear to disappear for Parts Two and Three of the novel. It seems as though the majority of these sections follow Levin, Kitty, Dolly, and Stepan Arkadyich (also known as Oblonsky or Stiva) rather than Anna, Alexey Alexandrovitch, and Vronsky. Sick with shame over her mistake with Vronsky, […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Chunkster, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Readalong, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Part One)

October 28, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Project Gutenberg, 2010. Originally published 1877. eBook. 1,441 pgs. Free download. One of the things I’m learning about myself is that I need to listen to the classics as I read them. The non-colloquial language of Dickens and Austen and, now, Tolstoy just does not sink in for me the way that of modern authors do. My reading speed is slowed significantly but my comprehension increases greatly. I’ve been attempting […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Chunkster, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Readalong, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Leo Tolstoy