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Recommendations based on Moscow to the End of the Lineby Venedikt Erofeev
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The Twelve Chairs
by Ilya Ilf
A comedic tale of two men's quest for hidden jewels in a chair with a secret compartment.
In the Soviet Union in 1927, a former Marshal of Nobility , Ippolit Matveyevich "Kisa" Vorobyaninov, works as the registrar of marriages and deaths in a sleepy provincial town. His mother-in-law ... (Wikipedia)
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.
The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)
Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A satirical story of a scientist who attempts to transform a stray dog into a human.
Moscow , 1924. While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Lying forlorn in a doorway, the dog awaits his end awash in self-pity. To his ... (Wikipedia)
Eugene Onegin
by Alexander Pushkin
A poetic novel of unrequited love and tragic consequences, set in early 19th century Russia.
In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored St. Petersburg dandy , whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties, and nothing more. Upon the death of a wealthy uncle, he inherits a substantial fortune ... (Wikipedia)
A Hero of Our Time
by Mikhail Lermontov
A story of a young man's journey through life and his experiences of love, betrayal and morality.
In its adventurous happenings, its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues, A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the ... (Goodreads)
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man's struggle to find his place in society, and the moral dilemmas he faces.
Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to ... (Wikipedia)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)
The Castle
by Franz Kafka
Townspeople's surreal struggle against a mysterious ruling power.
The protagonist, K., arrives in a village governed by a mysterious bureaucracy operating in a nearby castle. When seeking shelter at the town inn, he claims to be a land surveyor summoned by the ... (Wikipedia)
Women
by Charles Bukowski
A collection of stories exploring the lives of various women and their relationships with men.
Women focuses on the many dissatisfactions Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's ... (Wikipedia)
Journey to the End of the Night
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
A darkly comic, nihilistic journey of self-discovery, following a man into the heart of an absurd world.
Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic—boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq
Story of two half-brothers, exploring the depths of humanity and the emptiness of modern life.
Despite the essentially elaborate scope of the plot revealed in the novel's conclusion, the narrative focuses almost exclusively on the bleak and unrewarding day-to-day lives of the protagonists, two ... (Wikipedia)
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)
Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country
by Erich Maria Remarque
A refugee's struggle for survival in a world of turmoil and violence in 1930s Europe.
Set in 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two ... (Wikipedia)
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)
Ham on Rye
by Charles Bukowski
A semi-autobiographical novel following a young man's struggles with poverty, violence and mental illness.
The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941. , It begins with Chinaski's early memories. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the ... (Wikipedia)
The Overcoat
by Nikolai Gogol
A tale of a lowly bureaucrat's journey to reclaim his sense of self-worth.
The story narrates the life and death of titular councillor Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (Russian: Акакий Акакиевич Башмачкин), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of ... (Wikipedia)
Faust, First Part
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A timeless story of a man's struggle between the forces of good and evil.
Goethe’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental ... (Goodreads)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
by Hunter S. Thompson
A wild and hallucinatory journey through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas.
The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke ( Hunter S. Thompson ) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo ( Oscar Zeta Acosta ), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 ... (Wikipedia)
The Third Policeman
by Flann O'Brien
A bizarre yet darkly funny tale of a man's descent into a surreal world of mischievous creatures and strange events.
The Third Policeman is set in rural Ireland and is narrated by a dedicated amateur scholar of de Selby , a scientist and philosopher. , The narrator, whose name we never learn, is orphaned at a young ... (Wikipedia)
Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
A writer's journey of self-discovery in an Italian city, through a tangled web of art, beauty, and passion.
The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach , a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic " von " in his ... (Wikipedia)
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
by Nikolai Gogol
A collection of bizarre, humorous and satirical stories set in 19th century Russia.
When Pushkin first read some of the stories in this collection, he declared himself "amazed." "Here is real gaiety," he wrote, "honest, unconstrained, without mincing, without primness. And in places ... (Goodreads)
A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
A story of unrequited love in the midst of war.
The novel is divided into five sections or 'books'. Frederic Henry is first person narrator of the story. Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American paramedic , is serving in the Italian Army . The novel ... (Wikipedia)
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
A dystopian tale of a totalitarian state and its citizens' struggle for freedom.
A few hundred years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief ... (Wikipedia)
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
An aging knight's adventures and misadventures, filled with chivalry, honor, and satire.
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in ... (Goodreads)
Chess Story
by Stefan Zweig
A chess master's attempt to regain his lost skill, and the psychological battle he faces.
The narrator opens the story on a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis , Dr B, a securities expert hiding ... (Wikipedia)
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.
The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
by Anton Chekhov
A collection of short stories depicting the lives of ordinary people in Russia.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring ... (Goodreads)
Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol
A satirical tale of a man's quest for wealth, exposing the corruption of 19th century Russian society.
The story follows the exploits of Chichikov, a middle-aged gentleman of middling social class and means. Chichikov arrives in a small town and turns on the charm to woo key local officials and ... (Wikipedia)
Demons
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A fictional exploration of the human condition, examining the darker sides of our nature.
The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36. After an almost illustrious but prematurely curtailed academic career ... (Wikipedia)
