When I was 13 going on 14, I read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. I loved it. It made me appreciate not only Russian literature, but the classics in general. Tolstoy remains one of my favourite authors to this day, and I read War and Peace and The Death of Ivan Ilych last year. I’ve also always wondered about reading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. The rules of this challenge are read a minimum of four books on Russia, about Russia, set in Russia, written by Russians, etc. I aspire to complete some of this tentative list, and I’ve picked a couple of moderately lengthed books to help me out.

1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
2. Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
3. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
4. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
5. My Sister Life by Boris Pasternak

Bonus Round:

Plays by Anton Chekhov
A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Leo Tolstoy
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figgs
Another book by Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot, The Brothers Kazarmov, Notes from the Underground…)
A novel by Vladmir Nabokov (Ada, Pnin…)
Short stories and novellas by Anton Chekhov