It’s Russian Lit! Book Club

“Russian” to a good book! 😉 Winston Churchill once described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Now is a great time to engage with Russian literature; these works can help us understand the long suffering of the Russian people under their oppressive governments, as well as their culture. Many of the Russian writers the club will read were directly opposed to and persecuted by their government, and they can give us context for our current world as well as a damn good story. If you have even the slightest interest in understanding the complexity or Russia’s culture, this book club is for you.

We will be reading both seminal Golden Age classics (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev) and lesser known works, both old and modern. This club will only be reading fictional works – while Russian history can be equally as compelling, it will not be the focus.

This month we are reading Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It’s Russian Lit book club will meet at 2 PM, on Sunday, July 28.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.

Purchase a copy to read, or grab it from the library, and join us July 28, for an engaging discussion about Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. This book club is free to anyone who wishes to participate. No registration necessary.

Also, for 20 minutes after each club meeting, you will receive 20% off all books and merchandise!

Content Warnings for It’s Russian Lit! in 2024
Content Warnings for Roadside Picnic
Content Warnings for A Hero of Our Time
Content Warnings for Sofia Petrovna
Content Warnings for We
Content Warnings for The White Guard
Content Warnings for Cancer Ward