Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them

Elif Batuman’s first book, “The Possessed,” has just been released. It's an ode to avid Russian Lit fans like myself.
Batuman's search into writing led her to Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Babel, which then led her to write this book. It's not about these iconic Russians tho, its more just about life seen through the eyes of the reader and how we can bring the books we love closer to our lives.

Oh and did I mention she writes about The Smiths?

About Chekhov’s story “Lady With Lapdog,” Ms. Batuman writes, “I especially remember the passage about how everyone has two lives — one open and visible, full of work, convention, responsibilities, jokes, and the other ‘running its course in secret’ — and how easy it is for circumstances to line up so that everything you hold the most important, interesting, and meaningful is somehow in the second life, the secret one.”


As Dwight Garner(NY Times) put it best, "It's a pleasure to read over her shoulder".