100 books like Stalin's Nemesis

This was the book that inspired me to visit Russia, while researching Rasputin and the Romanovs, and then to write my own take on the relationship between Rasputin and Alexandra.

It’s a great book but hard-going for a novice, but I like to dive in at the deep end.

The most compelling aspect of Mirror of the Soul is its analysis of the great poet Tyutchev’s bi-polar temperament and compulsive philandering. He was a forgivable Don Juan, in that he deeply empathized with his victims, although his misbehaviour shortened the lives of his first wife and of his most infatuated mistress. Morbidly irresponsible, he impregnated at least two mistresses and both his wives before marriage. Joy was for Tyutchev a thin veneer of light over misery and darkness; deaths of those close to him and contrition (if not guilt) finally reconciled him, in a death-bed poem, with a “punitive God” who removes everything — “breath, willpower, sleep” — leaving just an aggrieved, loving wife as his intermediary. Mirror of the Soul is beautifully written and edited. It will be, for a long time, the standard work on Tyutchev, doubtless in Russia, too.

Like Felix Krull, or Jonathan Wild, this is the story of a con-man, murderer, traitor, somehow redeemed by his charm and incidents of bravery The novel is at its best when Javakhishvili starts to describe Kvachi’s experiences with the Russians during the Revolution, the civil war and the early years of the Soviet state; it becomes clear that what has seemed a send-up of morality and a celebration of the picaresque is in fact equally valid as a cold assessment of revolutionary realpolitik. This is a wonderful novel, subtle and extravagant at the same time, seeming to fly by the seat of its pants but in fact consistently aware of exactly how to tread the line between structure and improvisation. It is extremely generous, bursting out of what appear to be its narrow confines to give us far more than we initially expected.

I love the movie and musical adaptations of Anastasia, so it’s no wonder I love this magical family saga from Nadine Brandes. Brandes effortlessly weaves magic into the tale we thought we knew about Anastasia Romanov. And yes, there is both magic and romance.

With the leader of the Bolshevik army after her, Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov is given a mission to smuggle an ancient spell that might be her family’s only salvation into exile in Siberia. Nastya has barely dabbled in magic, but her only chances of saving herself and her family are to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome Bolshevik soldier who seems to be different. This story does contain violence, but overall is another read I both love and could recommend to anyone.

This book made me a traveling companion of Lenin. Together with him we go on an incredible journey: from Switzerland across Europe via Finland to Petrograd. This journey changed the world, because it brought Lenin back to Russia, Russia the October coup, and the century of a Soviet regime. Merridale depicts the unique moment of the dawn of a new age as banally and grotesquely as if she had really been there. The best part: just before he left, Lenin called the American embassy because he would have preferred to be transported by the Americans rather than the Germans. But it was Easter Sunday and no one could be reached at the embassy, and so the story took its course....

On the planet of January, one side is in permanent daylight and the other side is permanent night, with people managing to live on a strip of moderate light between the two extremes.

Sophie, a shy teenager, breaks the rules and is sent to the dark side to die, only she survives.  While she is in the dark, she meets telepathic creatures who, despite their terrifying visage, are kind-hearted—a shock to someone raised in a community who believes the creatures (and others) are awful because of the way they look.

Together with her best friend, Bianca, they decide to save the human race, against all dark odds, including secret outlaws. 

This TV series would showcase all the strange glory of Anders, along with the emotional depth that will have us rooting for our young heroines who literally go between the darkness and the light. Hey, J.J. Abrams, you listenin’?

The Roman poet Ovid was one of the most popular writers of his day, but the defining tragedy of his life – his lifelong exile from Rome at the very height of his powers – remains as mysterious today as it was in his own time. In The Love-Artist, Jane Alison provides that tragedy with a back story, when Ovid, on holiday on the shores of the Black Sea, meets and is enchanted by the witch-like Xenia and persuades her to return with him to Rome, with dire consequences. But it’s the book’s dream-like atmosphere – the sense that we are seeing the world through the eyes of a great poet with one foot in the ambitious world of empire and the other in an unstable netherworld of imagination and mythology – that will remain with the reader.

I wish I’d read this book before visiting Lebanese friends there.

The story of a man who returns to his native Lebanon years after the civil war, it portrays the complexity of their society through the impact the war had on a group of university friends.

It gives a wonderfully accurate feel of the sights, sounds, and tastes of the country, and an astute description of the psyche of the Lebanese people from the point of view of a returnee.

Easily one of my favorite epic fantasies I’ve read in recent years. The complexity of Gillian’s world is a highlight, yet she still makes the story and those within it accessible for her readers. It felt deep, not cluttered. She writes distinctly and with heart from three different points of view. I couldn’t flip pages fast enough, anxious for the moment these three story threads would intersect. It was more than worth the wait.