I am, as they say, incorrigible.
Back in October, I compiled and posted my original list for the entirely mouth-watering Russian Reading Challenge 2008. Undaunted by the fact that I was already five books over the challenge requirement as it was, I asked for extra recommendations. I read other people's lists. I went to my parents for Christmas and raided my TBR shelves for all things Russian. I was given Russian books as presents by a fellow Alexandrian because of the challenge.
And then I went shopping.
The upshot is that my pile of books for the challenge has... grown somewhat. Here they are, minus Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar, which I've yet to transport from the stacks:
From left to right:
- Marina Tsvetaeva, Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922 (new; seen on others' lists; present from Jo)
- Andrey Platonov, The Foundation Pit (promoted from TBR)
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils
- Nikolai Leskov, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (new; seen on others' lists)
- Mikhail Kuzmin, Wings (new; impulse buy)
- Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
- Victor Pelevin, The Clay Machine-Gun (promoted from TBR)
- Mikhail Bugakov, The Fatal Eggs
- Anna Akhmatova, Selected Poems
- Andrei Bely, Petersburg
- Alexander Pushkin, The Queen of Spades and other stories
- Andrey Kurkov, Death and the Penguin (new; present from Jo)
- Ivan Turgenev, Faust (new; impulse buy - score another one for Hesperus Press!)
- Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Little Dog and other stories (new)
- Tatyana Tolstaya, White Walls: Collected Stories (new; seen on others' lists)
(Oh, and that's The Tale of Genji at extreme left, in case anyone was wondering. No, not read yet; next year. ;-))
So there we go. I have a few other recommendations to follow up (Life and Fate and Summer in Baden-Baden, in particular), so this may grow further. Hmm.
I may be in trouble as regards finishing this year - but I can't wait to get started! War and Peace first, methinks...
~~Nic