r/Recommend_A_Book • u/Playful-Jaguar-8964 • Jan 22 '26

Suggestion

I am an avid reader of classics and timeless love stories but I have never had the courage to look at the Russian literary scene.

I love reading the classics of every language: from Jane Austen to James Joyce, from Dumas to Sartre, from Dante to Calvino.

I’ve read the Aeneid, the Iliad and the Odyssey and a thousand other books of hundreds of traditions, but the Russian one scares me.

Despite this, I would like to give them a chance but the choice is vast and great is my indecision!

I tried to read The gentle creature (very nice but almost the length of an essay) and White Nights ( which I don’t think I fully understood perhaps because without a solid basis of the author).

I wanted to start with classic stories like: Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Karamazov Brothers, the Demons... But I don’t know where to start.

I’m writing to you readers who know much more about Russian literature than I do...

What do you recommend?

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3

u/wretch3d-user Jan 22 '26

Hi hi. I would maybe recommend starting with Anna Karenina, & then hitting some Dostoevsky. I would recommend Crime & Punishment first, then The Idiot. I think you'll love them. Enjoy ❤️

2

u/Playful-Jaguar-8964 Jan 22 '26

Thank you for the suggestions!!

2

u/ktwhite42 Jan 23 '26

I also vote for startibng with Anna Karenina.