Fans pick 100 books like Yashka My Life as Peasant, Officer and Exile

On the centenary of the death of Rasputin comes a definitive biography that will dramatically change our understanding of this fascinating figure

A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the personification of evil. Numerous biographies, novels, and films recount his mysterious rise to power as Nicholas and Alexandra's confidant and the guardian of the sickly heir to the Russian throne. His debauchery and sinister political influence are the stuff of legend, and the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was laid at his feet.

But as the prizewinning historian Douglas Smith shows, the true… show more.

America's Siberian Adventure 1918-1920 recounts the covert campaign by the US to stabilize a region plagued by an uprising of multiple conflicts following the end of World War 1. General William Graves was the man sent to Siberia to lead an expeditionary force deep into the frozen interior, where Graves and his hardy men had to contend with Russian warlords, the Red Army, a roving brigade of Czechoslovakian troops, the need to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway, extreme weather conditions, and the regular armies of the Japanese and British. The results of the expedition were mixed, but historians agree that the… show more.

America's foremost authority on Russian communism—the author of the definitive studies The Russian Revolution and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime—now addresses the enigmas of that country's 70-year enthrallment with communism.

Succinct, lucidly argued, and lively in its detail, this book offers a brilliant summation of the life's work of "one of America's great historians" (Washington Post Book World).

"The author has distilled his arguments concerning several key questions: Why did tsarism fall? Why did the Bolsheviks triumph? Why did Stalin succeed Lenin? The book, based on lectures given at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, has a nicely colloquial… show more.

This is the first book in any language to offer a comprehensive analysis of the political culture of the Russian Revolution. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii examine the diverse ways that language and other symbols-including flags and emblems, public rituals, songs, and codes of dress-were used to identify competing sides and to create new meanings in the political struggles of 1917. The revolution was in many ways a battle to control these systems of symbolic meaning, the authors find. The party or faction that could master the complexities of the lexicon of the revolution was well on its way to… show more.

Eva Ibbotson's charming and warm-hearted tale, A Secret Countess was originally published as A Countess Below Stairs.

Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion. The staff and the family are sure there is something not quite right about their new maid -… show more.

Women have participated in war throughout history, but their experience in Russia during the First World War was truly exceptional. Between the war's beginning and the October Revolution of 1917, approximately 6,000 women answered their country's call. These courageous women became media stars throughout Europe and America, but were brushed aside by Soviet chroniclers and until now have been largely neglected by history. Laurie Stoff draws on deep archival research into previously unplumbed material, including many first-person accounts, to examine the roots, motivations, and legacy of these women. She reveals that Russia was the only nation in World War I… show more.

October 1917, heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution, remains a defining moment in world history. Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state, debate continues over whether, as historian E. H. Carr put it decades ago, these earth-shaking days were a "landmark in the emancipation of mankind from past oppression" or "a crime and a disaster." Some things are clear. After the implosion of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty as a result of the First World War, Russia was in crisis--one interim government replaced another in the vacuum… show more.

This is the first of four books of the novel, And Quiet Flows the Don. The second and third books are due to be put into ebook format in late 2016, with book four coming available in 2017.

And Quiet Flows the Don is an epic novel in four volumes by Russian writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov. The first three volumes were written from 1925 to 1932 and published in the Soviet magazine October in 1928–1932, and the fourth volume was finished in 1940. The English translation of the first three volumes appeared under this title in 1934.

The novel is… show more.

National Bestseller • One of the year's most acclaimed works of nonfiction • A Best Book of 2022: New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus

From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a "masterly" (New York Times) reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor

The nation was on the brink. Mobs burned Black churches to the ground. Courts threw thousands of people into prison for opinions… show more.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of ‘Offshore’, ‘The Blue Flower’ and ‘Innocence’ comes this Booker Prize-shortlisted tale of a troubled Moscow printworks .

Frank Reid had been born and brought up in Moscow. His father had emigrated there in the 1870s and started a print-works which, by 1913, had shrunk from what it was when Frank inherited it. In that same year, to add to his troubles, Frank’s wife Nellie caught the train back home to England, without explanation.

How is a reasonable man like Frank to cope? How should he keep his house running? Should he consult the Anglican… show more.