Book Reviews: By Date

Here are our links to the full text of our recent book and item reviews, in date order, from newest to oldest.

:: List alphabetically, by title. ::

Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2013

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City Pick: St. Petersburg
Heather Reyes, Marina Samsonova, James Rann, eds. (Oxygen Books, $10.75)
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Stalin's Barber
By Paul Levitt (Taylor Trade, $26,95)
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The Last Man in Russia
By Oliver Bullough (Basic, $27.99, May 2013)
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2013

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Russia’s People of Empire
Life Stories from Eurasia, ?1500 to the Present
Stephen M. Norris and Willard Sunderland, eds. (Indiana University Press, $35)
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Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov
Robert Chandler, editor (Penguin, $18)
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When the United States Invaded Russia
Woodrow Wilson’s Siberian Disaster
Carl J. Richard (Rowman & Littlefield, $34)
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Russian Life: Sep/Oct 2012

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Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy
by Douglas Smith, FSG ($30)
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Nevsky: A Hero of the People
by Ben McCool & Mario Guevara
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Russian Film Posters 1900-1930
Vivays Publishing ($35)
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St. Petersburg Noir
Julia Goumen & Natalia Smirnova, eds., Akashic ($15.95)
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Wooden Churches
Richard Davies & Matilda Moreton, White Sea ($60)
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Russian Life: July/Aug 2012

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Out of My Hands
By Natasha Borzilova (Hadley Music Group)
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Roadside Picnic
By Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Translated by Olena Bormashenko (Chicago Review Press $15.95)
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Sniper
By Nicolai Lilin (W.W. Norton, $24.95)
Translated by Jamie Richards
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Visit Sunny Chernobyl
(And other Adventures in the World’s Most Polluted Places), by Andrew Blackwell (Rodale, $25.99)
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Russian Life: May/June 2012

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50 Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories
Translated by Valentina Brougher and Frank Miller, with Mark Lipovetsky
(Academic Studies Press, $29)
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Just Send Me Word
Orlando Figes
(Henry Holt, $27)
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Stolen Air
The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam
Translated by Christian Wiman
(Ecco, $15.99)
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The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev
Daniel Triesman
(Simon & Schuster, $18)
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The Scar
Sergey and Marina Dyachenko
Translated by Elinor Huntington
(TOR, $24.99)
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The Time of Women
Elena Chizhova
Translated by Simon Patterson with Nina Chordas
(Glagoslav, $22.50)
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The Twelve Chairs
by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov
Translated by Anne O. Fisher
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Vladimir Putin and Russian Stagecraft
Allan C. Lynch
(Potomac Books, $24.95)
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2012

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Notes on the Cuff & Other Stories
By Mikhail Bulgakov (Ardis, $17.95) Translated by Alison Rice
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Russia: A 100-year Chronicle of the Wild East
By Martin Sixsmith (Overlook, $37.95)
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The Fallen Queen
By Jane Kindred (Entangled Publishing, $15.99)
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The Last Romanov
By Dora Levy Mossanen (Sourcebooks, $14.99)
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The Russian Origins of the First World War
By Sean McMeekin (Belknap Harvard, $29.95)
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The Winter Palace
By Eva Stachniak (Bantam, $26)
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2012

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Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir
Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky, translated and edited by Deborah Kaple (Oxford University Press, $29.95)
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Memories of Chekhov
Peter Sekirin, ed. and trans. (McFarland Books, $45)
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Pushkin Threefold
Alexander Pushkin, translated by Walter Arndt (Ardis, $29.95)
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The Darkening Field
William Ryan (Minotaur, $24.99)
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Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage
Albert Glinsky (University of Illinois Press, $24.95)
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Thirst
Translated by Marian Schwartz (Amazon Crossing, $14.95)
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Russian Life: Sep/Oct 2011

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Bloodlands
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Leningrad
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Moscow Philosophy and Falling Sky
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Separate Kingdoms
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The Damned and the Dead
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Russian Life: July/Aug 2011

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How I Ended This Summer
Directed by Alexei Popogrebsky
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Made in Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design
Michael Idov, ed.
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Moscow Believes in Tears
by Louis Menashe
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Romanov Riches
by Solomon Volkhov
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Russian Magic
by Cherry Gilchrist
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The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine
by Alina Bronsky
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The Suitcase
by Sergei Dovlatov
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Russian Life: May/June 2011

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Deathless
By Catherynne M. Valente
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Memoir of a Gulag Actress
By Tamara Petkevich, Yasha Klots and Ross Ufberg, translators
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Snowdrops
by A.N. Miller
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The Russian Word's Worth
By Michele A. Berdy
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The Three Fat Men
By Yuri Olesha, Hugh Aplin, translator
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2011

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Dacha Idylls
by Melissa L. Caldwell (University of California Press)
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Growing Up in a Criminal World: Siberian Education
by Nicolai Lilin
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Molotov's Magic Lantern
by Rachel Polonsky
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My Perestroika
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Russian Literature
by Andrew Baruch Wachtel and Ilya Vinitsky (Polity)
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The Road
by Vasily Grossman
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The True Memoirs of Little K
by Adrienne Sharp (FSG)
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2011

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Balancing Act
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Childhood, by Maksim Gorky
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Russian Lessons
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Travels in Siberia
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Russian Life: Nov/Dec 2010

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Android Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters (Quirk)
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Lost and Found in Russia
by Susan Richards (Other Press)
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Russia Against Napoleon
by Dominic Lieven (Viking)
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Russian Music for Cello and Piano
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Stalin's Romeo
by Emil Draitser (Northwestern University Press)
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The New Nobility
by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan (Public Affairs)
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Russian Life: Sep/Oct 2010

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Guardians
By Andy Freeberg
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Miss Gulag
Directed by Maria Yatskova
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The Concert
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The Holy Thief
by William Ryan
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The Littlest Enemies
by Deborah Hoffman
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When They Come for Us We'll Be Gone
by Gal Beckerman
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Russian Life: July/Aug 2010

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A Dream in Polar Fog
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Brief Lives: Tolstoy
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Moscow Noir
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The Possessed
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The Russia Reader
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Russian Life: May/June 2010

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A Mountain of Crumbs
by Elena Gorokhova
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Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Russia Experts
by David. C. Engerman
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Peter the Great
by Derek Wilson
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Russian San Francisco
by Lydia Zaverukha and Nina Bogdan
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The Raven’s Gift, by Jon Turk
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2010

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2017, by Olga Slavnikova
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Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, by Helen Rappaport
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The Line, by Olga Grushin
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2010

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Sibling insights into Chekhov
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Russian Life: Nov/Dec 2009

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Brief Lives: Alexander Pushkin
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In the First Circle
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Privet Amerika
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Terrible Tsarinas
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There is No Freedom Without Bread!
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Russian Life: Sep/Oct 2009

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Spymaster
It could be said that Oleg Kalugin’s tale picks up where Andrew Meier’s [The Lost Spy] leaves off, at least chronologically...
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The Lost Spy
In 1947, Stalin had an American in his employ, Isaiah “Cy” Oggins, murdered by lethal injection...
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Russian Life: July/Aug 2009

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Ballerina
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Kamchatka, by Igor Shpilenok and Patrico Robles Gil
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Londongrad
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Red Sky, Black Death
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The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
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Wave of Terror
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Russian Life: May/June 2009

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Alexandra
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Behind Closed Doors
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Katyn
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The Singing Revolution
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Tulpan
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2009

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Child 44
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The King of Vodka
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The Last Days of the Romanovs
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The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan
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Verses and Versions
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Volk's Shadow
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2009

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Master of the House
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Murderers in Mausoleums
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Stalin's Children
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The Bloody White Baron
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Russian Life: Nov/Dec 2008

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A Great Time
A wonderful bilingual book of stories for the holidays.
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I Was A Potato Oligarch
John Mole's romp through Russian capitalism.
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Kot v Shlyape
The Cat in the Hat goes po-russky!
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Moscow & St. Petersburg: 1900-1920
A wonderfully illustrated book on the Silver Age.
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Russians in Hollywoood, Hollywood's Russians
by Harlow Robinson
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Russian Life: Sep/Oct 2008

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Lenin's Private War
by Leslie Chamberlin
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Past Imperfect: 318 Episodes from the Life of a Russian Artist
A hilarious look at the life of an artist in Soviet Russia.
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The Secret History of Moscow
by Ekaterina Sedia
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The Veil of Gold
by Kim Wilkins
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Russian Life: July/Aug 2008

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History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800
Volume 2
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History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800
Volume 1
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Investigating the Russian Mafia
by Joseph D. Serio
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The Angel of Grozny
by Asne Seierstad
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The Pearl
by Douglas Smith
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Young Pushkin
by Yuri Tynyanov, translated by Anna Kurkina Rush and Christopher Rush
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Russian Life: May/June 2008

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Advanced Russian Through History
by Benjamin Rifkin, Olga Kagan and Anna Yatsenko
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Angel of Vengeance
by Ana Siljak
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Russian in Use
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The Magical Chorus
by Solomon Volkov
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The New Cold War
by Edward Lucas
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The Silencing
by Alix Lambert
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2008

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Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet
by Roberta Reeder
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Balakirev and Russian Folksong
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Children's World: Growing up in Russia, 1890-1991
by Catriona Kelly
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Pravda
by Edward Docx
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The Bolsheviks in Power
by Alexander Rabinowitch
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The Storks Nest
Laura William's captivating memoir of life in a Russian village.
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2008

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Getting Russia Right
by Dmitry Trenin
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One Soldier's War in Chechnya
by Arkady Babchenko
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Rostropovich: The Musical Life of the Great Cellist
by Elizabeth Wilson
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The Captain's Daughter
by Alexander Pushkin (translated by Robert Chandler)
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Russian Life: Nov/Dec 2007

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About Chekhov
by Ivan Bunin
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Literary St. Petersburg
by Elaine Blair
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Sacred Sea
by Peter Thompson
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The Mark of Cain
by filmmaker Alix Lambert
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The Soviet Image
by Peter Radetsky
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The Whisperers
by Orlando Figes
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Russian Life: Sept/Oct 2007

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Brothers on the Bashkaus
by Eugene Buchanan
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Ivan the Fool
by Andrei Sinyavsky
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King of Odessa
by Robert A. Rosenstone
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Song Without Words
by Leah Bendavid-Val, ed.
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The Unknown Gulag
by Lynne Viola
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Russian Life: July/August 2007

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Cannibal Island
by Nicolas Werth
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Motherland
by Leslie Chamberlain
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Russian Archiitecture and the West
by Dmitri Schwidkovsky
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Solovki Garden
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Russian Life: May/June 2007

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Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence
by Nigel West
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Ilf & Petrov's American Road Trip
by Ilya Ilf & Evgeny Petrov, Edited by Erika Woolf
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Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Golden Ring
by Masha Nordbye
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Red Mutiny
by Neal Bascomb
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St. Petersburg
National Geographic Traveler
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The Slynx
by Tatyana Tolstaya
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Touring Kyiv
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Touring Odessa
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Touring the Crimea
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Russian Life: Mar/Apr 2007

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Animated Soviet Propaganda
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Brother
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Make Mine Vodka
by Susan Waggoner & Robert Markel
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Night of Denial
by Ivan Bunin
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Quiet Flows the Don
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Stalin's Guerillas
by Kenneth Slepyan
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Stalin's Wars
by Geoffrey Roberts
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Russian Life: Jan/Feb 2007

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Dances in Deep Shadows
by Michael Occleshaw
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Defiance
by Alex Konanykhin
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Glas: War and Peace
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Jewels of the Tsars
by Prince Michael of Greece
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Russian War Films
by Denise Youngblood
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