I’d like to share with you the list of books I have read that give the reader important insight into Russian history, philosophy, culture, and politics. My aim is to give you good resources available for free. Much of Russia’s celebrated literature is in the public domain. So too are many tracts written around the time of the Russian Revolution. There are some outstanding sources on the web to get these materials. I’m also particularly partial to ebooks, so most of my references will be made to where you can download the best books. There will be several examples of books that I simply bought and sit comfortably on my bookshelf. However, many of them are available at your local public library. I will start this little project with the actual bibliographical information and then expand it, as I can, to short reviews of them. As these come along, I will point out to you why these books are important and how they contribute to a greater understanding of Russia.
Free Books:
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Dream Of A Ridiculous Man. London, – Lindsay Drummond Ltd., 1945.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Grand Rapids, MI. – William B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Idiot. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Gogol, Nikolai. The Inspector-General. London: Penguin Classics, 2006.
Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls. London: Penguin Classics, 1995.
Gogol, Nicolai. The Overcoat. London: Penguin Classics, 2006.
Goldman, Emma. My Disillusionment in Russia. Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1923
Jones, C. Sheridan. Bolshevism: Its Cause and Cure. London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1919.
Kliefoth, Alfred Will. Bolshevism, by an Eyewitness from Wisconsin. Milwaukee, WI.: American Constitutional League of Wisconsin, 1920.
Lermontov, Mikhail Yurevich. A Hero of Our Time. Public Domain Books, 2006.
Richter, Eugene. Pictures of the Socialistic Future. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd., 1907.
Saltykov, Mikhail Evgrafovich. A Family of Noblemen. New York: Boni & Liveright, Inc., 1917.
Tolstoy, Alexei. Aelita. New York: Macmillan, 1981.
Tolstoy, Leo. Hadji Murad. Hazleton, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 1904.
Tolstoy, Leo. The Cossacks. New York City: Scribner’s, 1878.
Turgenev, Ivan. Diary of a Superfluous Man. London: William Heinemann, 1894, 1899.
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. New York City: Modern Library, 2001.
Purchased Books or Library Books:
Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Bulgakov, Mikhail. Heart Of A Dog. New York: Grove Press, 1986.
Bulgakov, Mikhail. The Master and Margarita. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. Washington, DC: Regnery Pub., 2001.
Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Dornberg, John. Brezhnev. Delhi: Vikas Pub. House, 1974.
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: Russian Revolution, 1891-1924. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1998.
Figes, Orlando. The Whisperers. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007.
Fischer, John. Why They Behave Like Russians. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.
Goldman, Marshall I. What Went Wrong with Perestroika (Updated). New York: Norton, 1991.
Grossman, Vasily. Life and Fate. New York: New York Review Books, 2006.
Grossman, Vasily. Everything Flows. New York: New York Review Books, 2009.
Kennan, George F. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin. Boston, MA.: Little, Brown & Company, 1961.
Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon: A Novel. New York: Scribner, 2006.
Krushchev, Nikita. Krushchev Remembers – The Last Testament. Boston, MA.: Little, Brown & Company, 1974.
Lyons, Eugene. Assignment in Utopia: An Autobiography. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1937.
Medvedev, Zhores A. Andropov. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1983.
Merridale, Catherine. Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.
Molotov, V.M. Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics. Chicago: Terra Publishing Center, 1991.
Payne, Robert . The Rise and Fall of Stalin. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1968.
Service, Robert. Comrades! Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Service, Robert. Stalin: A Biography. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
Service, Robert. Trotsky: A Biography. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. NAL Trade; Reprint edition, 2009.
Ulam, Adam B. Stalin: Tha Man and His Era. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973.
The Great Russia Experiment 