The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett
The early part of the book was heavy on religious discussion. The end was a murder trial. In between it was quite slow moving. The early writing was good, but it went on for too long. The trial was fast paced and tied in some of the moral discussions of the early part.
Eugene Onéguine (Eugene Onegin) by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Henry Spalding
Eugene Onegin is told in strict verse form and would probably be more appreciated in the original Russian. The protagonist is a rich youth who thinks of himself better than others. Alas, his life does not go as well as he would like for it to go.
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, translated by D. J. Hogarth
This seems to be an exploration of wealth and money in mid 19th century Russia. People talk about control of others and buying land and peasants. There are other aspects of Russian life in place. The novel ends somewhat abruptly in mid-sentence, but does seem to ahve things fairly wrapped up. It did seem to go on a bit too long for the length of content.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, translated by Olena Bormashenko
"Stalkers" go exploring the waste zone after an alien invasion. They can get into trouble, but there is some value in those. The people keep going back, even though government officials offer them a chance to live elsewhere. At first I thought the book was talking about a nuclear disaster area, but I realized this was just something assume by those exploring the Chernobyl region. At the end, there is an afterward discussing the publication process during Soviet Russia. He does brush much of it off as not relevant anymore, but it is an interesting look into the history.
Pimsleur Russian Level 1 Lessons 1-30 by Pimsleur
This is available for a 21 day checkout via Libby. Audible has the similar lessons in 5 lesson chunks. You can also purchase a CD from Amazon with 16 lessons. It looks like Libby is the best deal. However, you are supposed to do a lesson a day, and 30 spans more than the 21 day checkout. I started the lessons after it was checked out for a while. I did about a week's worth of lessons, then the loan expired. When the renewed one came, I had lost interest. I really need to listen at 1x speed to grasp it, and it feels like things take much too long at 1x.
As for the course, it seemed reasonable. It starts out with the very practle. A lot of "do you speak Russian?" conversation starters. Each lessons reviews the previous lessons and then builds on it some. It is specifically meant to be audio only. I felt I was learning some. When I didn't focus well, I did not make much progress. It is hard to listen to something for 30 minutes in a way you can stay focussed and speak things out loud.
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak translated by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear
Doctor Zhivago was a doctor that lived in Russia around the time of great change. There is a lot of talk of the Russian revolution and the onset of war. The Doctor seemed to attend to people and write poetry and concern himself with religion. There were allusions to religious teachings as part of his thinking about things. I wasn't quite sure what the point of everything was. It did seem like he had some wealth and was stuck in some internal conflicts. The novel was first published in Italy because the communist leadership did not want it published.
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
The short stories in this collection were written between the 1920s and 1950s. They range in various lengths and styles. One story is about a duel. They protagonist goes through all the steps to fight a duel. Then at the last minute, the opposing party drops out, giving the protagonist a victory without the consequences of actually fighting.
The collection could use some editing. There are a lot of stories here. Some were translated. Others originally in English. Many are totally forgettable. There is a small section at the end about the stories. Some have interesting tidbits, while others are just dates. I would rather have had a better curated selection of stories.
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Gorky was written in English by a Russian, and then later translated into Russian. It appears that the author wrote it to advocate for communism. However, it comes across as an identification of the pitfalls of peasant enablement. In the book, it keeps going back to the Mother. She at first cannot read and is baffled with what this revolutionaries are up to. Then she learns to read. She gradually becomes part of the movement, and even finds herself on the wrong side of the law.
Are these workers too subject to manipulation? They learn to read and then read the subversive publications. There is much effort made to continue to publish these to recruit more workers to their side. Are these people just being manipulated by a different group? First they are following their bosses and doing work. Then they are following revolutionaries and advocating for revolution. They have simple traded one allegiance for another without engaging in significant individual thought or autonomy. They are willing to carry out violence in the name of this revolution. The various publications appear to be a way of short-circuiting what would otherwise be a slow moving revolution. Is this short circuit a good thing? Do they just get one part without all the nuances? These are essentially early conspiracy theories. There are great efforts made to control the communication on both sides. Today there is widespread availability of different thoughts from all sides, but these leaves even more areas open for manipulation.
The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin
This books is weird. It is tied to both mythology and the modern world. Much of it consists of dialogs between mythological beings. They look at mythology, religion and other aspects of life. There is the maze and the natural and supernatural nature. There is enlightenment and other things. It felt interesting, but I wasn't sure where it was going.
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
Cincinatis is in prison for a bizarre crime. He is sentenced to death. However, they cannot tell him when he will die. He tries to write about his experiences. There are various hangups and issues, such as the executioner getting sick. Finally the day comes. There are some Kafkaesque moments in here, but I had troubled sticking with it.
The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov wrote The Enchanter in Russian while living in Paris. It was among his last works written in Russian. The novella is somewhat similar to Lolita, but much more disturbing. A man is attracted to a teen girl. He marries her mother. The mother dies. Now the man has custody of the girl. They have a flirtatious, relationship. He fantasizes about taking the relationship to the next level and attempts to make a move one night when she is sleeping. She wakes up and starts to scream. He realizes how evil he has and runs away to attempt to destroy himself.
This collection of Tolstoy short stories includes:They explore ethical and religious topics. The title story focuses on a man that is dying. He had risen up in society and made some sacrifices along the way. However, his death is now leading to the unwinding of life in the relative unknown.
Others somewhat seem to connect together. The people explore their state in life. In one story, the hangman undergoes a religious conversion. How will people be killed? In another the Tsar contemplates his experience and that of his people. The purpose of God and the needs of men towards other are explored in detail.
The storytellers have honed their skills in the pre-Soviet days. There are themes of the struggles of common men. Most are firmly in the realism camp. However, there was one fun story about a person who had lost his nose and had it show up in strange locations. A good story follows an event that changes the life of characters that we care about. Most background and description should help us to know the characters and bring out the story at hand. The story may even behave differently than an author intended. A good writer would let it do what it needs to do.
The novel had a special place within Soviet culture. It was an important means of entertainment as well as indoctrination. The authors also had to walk a fine line of properly appealing to the sensibilities of the current leadership. From Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev, the leader in power caused different interpretations and sensibilities to become more important. The novels would stress the current sensibilities, sometimes acknowledging the faults of the past. There was still some space for independence and subterfuge, yet most novels adhered to a standard formula. Gorky's Mother seemed to be mentioned over in over. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, the novel's importance waned in independent Russia.
The Master and Margarita is weird. Part of it is the story of Pilate at the time of Christ. There is also many events taking place in "modern" Moscow. The devil appears and recruits people. One man ends up in a mental institution because he is seen as crazy - but is he witnessing real events? There is a book that resembles the book. And just to liven things up, there is also a talking cat. People are drawn to do crazy things, that may often involve an unexpected lack of clothing. People randomly die in weird ways. Did I mention a talking cat? It is difficult to tell what is intended to be "real" and what is delusionary. In some ways it doesn't matter. It can be read as a societal critique or just as something weird.
The Russian Revolution was full of contradictions. There were also many "lucky events" that occurred to lead things one way or the other. The author sees the experience as an overall negative for the people. The revolution broke out during World War II. St Petersburg was a cosmopolitan city at the time. However, there was a sharp divide between rich and poor. People were also unhappy with the Czar and the influence of the healer Rasputin. He had a bad reputation and people really wanted him out of there. They finally plotted to kill him. Then they decided the czar must go also. This lead to the February revolution. There was plenty of happenstance and a great deal of incompetence the provisional government. They let the communists infiltrate and thus enabled the communist revolution. The communists came into power and realized they needed money. However, the bank workers went on strike. They thus had to break the strike to try to secure money. They also needed food. So they demanded it from the peasants, killing them if they didn't provide sufficiently. It all makes from a great start for a "peasant workers party". The communists were also against the death penalty and exile - until they needed both to enforce their way. They were strongly anti-war, but then needed further war to cement their power. They advocated nations' right of self-determination. However, that didn't apply when the nations like Ukraine didn't want to be part of the communist confederation. Later, the communists realized there was a great source of wealth in the churches. They thus strongly advocated official state atheism and taking of all the stored wealth from the churches. (Of course this didn't go to the people, but to the central communist organization.) Even communism was sometimes de-emphasized in favor of capitalism when needed. The communists also got some lucky breaks when western bowers decided to stop supporting the opposing groups and gave recognition to the Bolsheviks. (Only to later regret the move.) 
The Luzhin Defense is one of Nabakov's earlier novels, originally published in Russian in 1930 and not translated into English until 1964. The title character, Luzhin is an awkward, likely autistic man who is an excellent chess player. As a youth, he does not have friends, but develops a passion for chess after he has been introduced. He reaches grandmaster level and becomes engaged to a girl (much to her parent's chagrin.) However, during a high level tournament, he has a nervous breakdown. Chess appears to be the cause of his problems, and he must ween himself from it to be healthy again. He does, and soon makes a recovery. However, he later encounters people and events from his past, eventually having his mental health fade again. History of Russia from Peter the Great to Gorbachev
Alexander II instituted land reform and "freedom" of serfs in 1860s. He had initially seemed rather conservative (and followed in the footsteps of a very conservative Tsar.) It seems that the best "reformers" are those that have conservative views and are able to make reforms pragmatically, rather than idealistically. The radical elements, however, assassinated him after he had drawn up plans for an elected parliament. This brought the changes to a screeching halt. It seems there was very little time when the peasants actually "tasted" freedom. The oppressive nature of communism may not have seemed significantly different to the common man. The people in control and the "dogma" may have changed, but lack of personal autonomy would not be seen as anything of serious concern.
The comunist era seems to have been giving fuzzy coverage here. We get a smattering of social anecdotes, but I wasn't clear how Stalin came to power. I did get the impression that communism was initially a hippie ideal of individualistic free love and shared everything. However the iron hand wad needed to run the state and force the ideal. World war II provided a foil. The state relaxed and mobilized the people in defense of the fatherland. People loved it. (And Hitler botched it. Some were willing to treat nazis as liberators, but they were instead treated as serfs). After the war, however, through state came back.
The portrayal of Gorbachev was enlightening. He was seaking an idealist socialism. However, his reforms failed, leading to the collapse of communism rather than its perfection. In the end, perhaps Marx was right. Communism can't be forced. People like to aspire to something. Russian peasants have historically had little to aspire to. Czar. Communists. Oligarchy. What's the difference?
War and Peace is a long book. I tried listening to the BBC dramatization that "only" lasts about 10 hours. It was tough to keep all the characters and events straight. I guess that is why it is such a long book. It takes place in Russia along the times of the Napoleonic invasion. Society is greatly altered both on the individual scale as well as the public scale. And the rest is just details...
