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Writers, poets, directors – people of creative professions – told us what books they put aside for themselves on these New Year’s days. Classics, modern fashionable prose – and someone prefers pure poetry of fact.
Alexander Kabakov
“Ten vacation days for me will be marked by reading ten novels that have received the main national awards of the year. But I will read at least a few pages of A Hero of Our Time every day. Slowly stretching out the pleasure. I am convinced that if in Russian literature there were only Pushkin’s “Dubrovsky” and “The Captain’s Daughter” and Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”, then this would be enough to call our literature great. Because Gogol, and Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy are the continuation of that Russian prose, the beginning of which was laid by Pushkin and Lermontov.
True, 190 p.
Alexander Kabakov, writer, author of several books, one of the latest is the novel The Old Man and the Angel (AST, 2013).
Vitaly Mansky
“I’m going to finally read Sorokin’s new novel. I am far from literary circles, and for me he is not a completely understandable figure. I only know that critics dance around each of his books and it is indecent in society to admit that you have not read it. However, fashion is fashion, and, as far as I understood from the reviews, the novel gives a picture of our supposed future, when Russia plunges into some kind of new Middle Ages. It can be considered that this is a writer’s political forecast based on existing trends. Well, it’s always good to know about the future, even if the author is wrong.”
Body, 448 c ,, 385 rub.
Vitaly Mansky, director of documentary films, for the film “Pipe” (2013) received the prize of the XXIV film festival “Kinotavr”.
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- Holidays for body and soul
Alexander Shatalov
“I love to travel and travel guides are interesting reading for me. And this one is the most unusual of them all. It leads exactly to the Istanbul that you want to see, reveals what is hidden behind new buildings, in courtyards or basements of buildings. And the city begins to turn its true beauty and history. Even about Hagia Sophia, the most famous monument of the city, you can learn amazing details. The current Royal Doors of the cathedral were made in the 750th century. And the former were made from the planks of Noah’s Ark and then stolen by the crusaders. Their silver pens had a healing property: the poisoned could put them in his mouth – and he felt better. With the help of this book, you can immerse yourself in the history of the Ancient World for several days. It is unthinkable to take it with you to Istanbul – it is too voluminous, XNUMX pages! But it’s time to prepare for the trip.”
Around the world, 752 p., 518 rubles.
Alexander Shatalov, poet, TV presenter, author of documentaries, among them Nemukhin Monologues (2013).
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- New Year’s makeup: a bright future
Elena Gremina
“Documentary evidence has a special attraction for me. So I will finish reading the book of the historian Vladimir Kobrin. Now history, as always in troubled times, has been updated – it is being interpreted, falsified, a single textbook is being composed … It is known that history is written – and rewritten – by the winners. And now, apparently, another such moment. And reading the work of a serious scientist is a return to the norm, to the meaning of historical evidence. The figure of Ivan the Terrible and his deeds is just one of the points of actualization of the past. All questions to her are important for us today. Grozny – a tyrant or a collector of lands? What was the oprichnina – an assembly of lawless people or a detachment of patriots? Finally, who is Malyuta Skuratov – an obliging executioner or a guardian of the motherland? Kobrin’s book does not provide easy answers.
RGGU, 376 p., 232 rubles.
Elena Gremina, playwright, director of Theatre.doc, author of the new play “150 Reasons Not to Defend the Homeland” (December 23, Theatre.doc).
Tatyana Shcherbina
“The first book of Pavel Basinsky’s trilogy, Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise, was given to me by the publishing house two years ago. I was going to skim, no more – I was never fond of Tolstoy – but I could not tear myself away until I finished reading it. It turned out to be a documentary novel about the fact that the flight from home paradise was also Russia’s flight from itself, the crack crept, ending in collapse, in revolution. Tolstoy felt this process before others. The second book, The Saint Against the Lion, is about the same thing, but in the aspect of religion: a dispute in absentia and enmity between Leo Tolstoy and John of Kronstadt. The dramatic intensity of the book is such that it sparkles. The situation of those years resembles the current one, and everywhere. Basinsky shows the mechanism of rock, reflected in personal destiny – here is some new literary genre, at the forefront of relevance, albeit about history, non-fiction as a breathtaking novel.
AST, 576 p., 382 rub.
Tatyana Shcherbina, poet, writer, author of several books, the last “Krokozyabry” (AST, Astrel, 2011).
Mikhail Ivanov
“In my free time, I am not drawn to light, entertaining reading: it can grab, but does not leave an aftertaste. And I would like to experience deep feelings, to find a wise interlocutor in the author. I had heard about the book Interlinear for a long time, but I didn’t know anything about Lilianna Lungina, I didn’t know that she translated Astrid Lindgren’s Carlson and many other books. So my professional interest also arose: as a publisher, I appreciate a good translation and I believe that a talented translator is a real co-author of a book. They also told me about Interlinear that it was an autobiography, but rather unusual. In it, through the fate of one hero, the fate of the whole country is revealed, and this attracts me. In general, other people’s biographies provoke you to think about yourself: about what you have inherited and what you will leave as a legacy to those who come after you.
Corpus, 480 p., 500 rubles.
Mikhail Ivanov, publisher, editor-in-chief of the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house.