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Books for

Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Essential Reading

Item EXRUS128. Buy these 4 items as a set for $75 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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Odyssey Guide Moscow, St. Petersburg & The Golden Ring

Odyssey Guide Moscow, St. Petersburg & The Golden Ring

by Masha Nordbye | Patricia Lanza

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 728 PAGES

A comprehensive guide to the art, culture and history of two great Russian cities, filled with maps and fine color photographs. (RUS78, $26.95)

Russia, A Concise History

Russia, A Concise History

by Ronald Hingley

  • HISTORY
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

Well-known scholar Hingley sketches Russia's multiple transformations from her illiterate, pagan, Slavic roots to a multi-ethnic empire in this highly readable, well-illustrated brief history. (RUS04, $19.95)

Armageddon Averted, The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000

Armageddon Averted, The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000

by Stephen Kotkin

  • HISTORY
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 304 PAGES

An assessment of the decline of the Soviet Empire. (RUS397, $16.95)

Petrostate, Putin, Power, and the New Russia

Petrostate, Putin, Power, and the New Russia

by Marshall I. Goldman

  • HISTORY
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

Incorporating extensive research and interviews with Putin and narrated with panache, this is the story of Russia's re-emergence from the post-Soviet ashes and its evolution into a gas and oil-based economic powerhouse. (RUS366, $16.95)

 
Moscow Map

Moscow Map


by ITMB

  • MAP

A handy, folding map of Moscow. (RUS151, $8.95)

St. Petersburg Map

St. Petersburg Map


by Borch Maps

  • MAP

A detailed, laminated city plan of St. Petersburg, with street index inset. Place names are in transliterated English. (RUS89, $7.95)

Culture Smart! Russia

Culture Smart! Russia


by Anna King

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 168 PAGES

A concise, no-nonsense guide to local customs, etiquette and culture with a short overview of the land and people along with practical travel advice. (RUS361, $9.95)

Eyewitness Guide Moscow

Eyewitness Guide Moscow


by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 263 PAGES

This outstanding guide covers Moscow's culture, history and attractions with maps, site plans and hundreds of color photographs. (RUS164, $23.00)

Eyewitness Guide St. Petersburg

Eyewitness Guide St. Petersburg


by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 264 PAGES

With excellent local maps and site plans, this outstanding visual guide introduces the culture, history and attractions of St. Petersburg. (RUS87, $25.00)

Literary St. Petersburg, A Guide to the City and Its Writers

Literary St. Petersburg, A Guide to the City and Its Writers


by Elaine Blaire

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 137 PAGES

Blair shows St. Petersburg through the words, museums and haunts of 15 writers, including Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Nabokov. (RUS406, $16.95)

A History of Modern Russia

A History of Modern Russia


by Robert Service

  • HISTORY
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 712 PAGES

This lively history covers one hundred years of the triumphs, upheavals and tyrannies of Russia from the earliest days of the revolution to the society and politics of the 21st-century. (RUS334, $26.50)

Black Earth, A Journey Through Russia After the Fall

Black Earth, A Journey Through Russia After the Fall


by Andrew Meier

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2005
  • PAPER
  • 516 PAGES

Meier ventures far outside the Kremlin gates for this account of the lives typical Russians since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A vivid, insightful portrait. (RUS236, $16.95)

How Russia Shaped the Modern World: From Art to Anti-Semitism, Ballet to Bolshevism


by Steven G. Marks

  • HISTORY
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 408 PAGES

This wide-ranging book focuses on Russian contributions to art, literature, politics and ideas of 19th- and 20th-century Europe and America. (RUS245, $29.95)

Icon and Devotion, Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia


by Oleg Tarasov

  • RELIGION
  • 2003
  • HARD COVER
  • 416 PAGES

Tarasov examines making and significance of the icon of Old Russia, touching on not only their religious meanings but also their significance to Russian national consciousness and cultural identity. (RUS332, $40.00)

Imperium


by Ryszard Kapuscinski

  • HISTORY
  • 1995
  • PAPER
  • 352 PAGES

An account of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and the challenged faced thereafter by the resulting democracies. (RUS376, $16.00)

Land of the Firebird, The Beauty of Old Russia

Land of the Firebird, The Beauty of Old Russia


by Suzanne Massie

  • HISTORY
  • 1995
  • PAPER
  • 496 PAGES
  • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

Massie traces both miniscule details and larger movements in pre-revolutionary Russian art, literature and daily life in this affectionate overview of 19th-century palaces, courts and culture. (RUS21, $35.00)

Lenin's Tomb

Lenin's Tomb


by David Remnick

  • HISTORY
  • 1994
  • PAPER
  • 588 PAGES

A gripping eyewitness tale of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remnick, the Washington Post reporter on the scene, combines fine historical scholarship with great storytelling. (RUS07, $17.00)

Moscow, A Cultural History

Moscow, A Cultural History


by Caroline Brooke

  • HISTORY
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

Caroline Brooke explores the birth and various stages and reinventions of Moscow, from a twelfth-century fortress to invasion by Napoleon in 1812 to the rise and fall of communism. Part of the Cityscapes series. (RUS292, $24.99)

Natasha's Dance, A Cultural History of Russia

Natasha's Dance, A Cultural History of Russia


by Orlando Figes

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 768 PAGES

In this lively cultural history, Figes looks at both the great works by Russian masters and longstanding folk traditions. The title is drawn from a scene of Tolstoy's War and Peace in which a European-educated countess performs a peasant dance. (RUS180, $23.00)

Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia

Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia


by W. Bruce Lincoln

  • HISTORY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 432 PAGES

A wonderfully written, informative portrait of St. Petersburg, focusing on the city's development in the 18th and 19th centuries as Russia's "window on the West." Highly recommended for travelers with an interest in the character and significance of the city and its monuments. (RUS128, $19.95)

The 900 Days, The Siege of Leningrad

The 900 Days, The Siege of Leningrad


by Harrison Salisbury

  • HISTORY
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 640 PAGES

Salisbury's detailed account of the three-year-long Nazi blockade of Leningrad (now St Petersburg). (RUS235, $27.00)

The Icon and the Axe, An Interpretive History of Russian Culture

The Icon and the Axe, An Interpretive History of Russian Culture


by James H. Billington

  • HISTORY
  • 1970
  • PAPER
  • 786 PAGES

This cultural and artistic history, written by the Librarian of Congress, maps the spiritual and ideological forces that led to the development of Russia. (RUS09, $24.00)

The New Cold War, Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West


by Edward Lucas

  • HISTORY
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 261 PAGES

Lucas, former Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist, shows the coersion, abuse and hostility of contemporary Russia in this sobering assessment. (RUS407, $16.95)

The Routledge Atlas of Russian History

The Routledge Atlas of Russian History


by Martin Gilbert

  • HISTORY
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 216 PAGES

A fantastically interesting, useful survey of the history of Russia in maps. This revised edition follows the fate of Russia since the demise of the Soviet Union, with 161 maps covering rebellion, famine, expansion, trade, the military, communism's collapse and myriad other topics. (RUS176, $29.95)

On Russian Music


by Richard Taruskin

  • MUSIC
  • 2008
  • HARD COVER
  • 407 PAGES

This volume gathers thirty-six essays on Russian composers ranging from Bortnyansky in the eighteenth century to Tarnopolsky in the twenty-first, as well as all of the famous names in between. (RUS442, $55.00)

Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, A Biography of the Works Through Mavra


by Richard Taruskin

  • MUSIC
  • 1996
  • HARD COVER
  • 1757 PAGES

Taruskin draws on newly accessible archives and a wealth of Russian documents to define Stravinsky's relationship to the musical and artistic traditions of his native land, giving us a dramatically new picture of one of the major figures of music history. (RUS443, $215.00)

The People's Artist, Prokofiev's Soviet Years


by Simon Morrison

  • MUSIC
  • 2008
  • HARD COVER
  • 491 PAGES

A look at the tumultuous and creative life of this celebrated 20th century composer through an examination of his early years in Russia during the Revolution, his move to Paris and the recently discovered scores and speeches. (RUS441, $29.95)

Galina, A Russian Story


by Galina Vishnevskaya

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1985
  • PAPER
  • 568 PAGES

Born in St. Petersburg, the great Soprano (and wife of Mstislav Rostropovich) recounts her extraordinary life in this bestseller (turned into an opera in 1996). (RUS312, $26.00)

Peter the Great, His Life and World

Peter the Great, His Life and World


by Robert Massie

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 914 PAGES

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Massie portrays the giant of history who transformed Russia from backwater tsardom into a major empire. (RUS48, $21.00)

Shostakovich, A Life Remembered


by Elizabeth Wilson

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 600 PAGES

An engaging biography of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, drawing heavily on the accounts of his contemporaries. (RUS94, $30.95)

Speak, Memory

Speak, Memory


by Vladimir Nabokov

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1989
  • PAPER
  • 316 PAGES

Nabokov's richly imagined memoir wonderfully evokes cultural life among the well-to-do in turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg. (RUS28, $16.00)

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment


by Fyodor Dostoevsky | David McDuff

  • LITERATURE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 647 PAGES

Dostoevsky's thriller of murder and redemption is redolent of St. Petersburg's atmosphere. A cornerstone of Russian literature, and one of the greatest detective stories ever told. (RUS18, $15.00)

Life and Fate

Life and Fate


by Vasily Grossman

  • LITERATURE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 896 PAGES

Interweaving a transfixing account of the battle of Stalingrad with the story of a single middle-class family, the Shaposhnikovs, scattered by fortune from Germany to Siberia, Vasily Grossman fashions an immense, intricately detailed tapestry depicting a time of both unimaginable horror and even stranger hope. (RUS299, $24.95)

Petersburg

Petersburg


by David McDuff | Andrei Bely

  • LITERATURE
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 624 PAGES

This novel, written in 1916, conjures a whirlwind of impressions and impulses in a kinetic meditation on the nature of the city. (RUS134, $17.00)

Russian Short Stories

Russian Short Stories


by Robert Chandler

  • LITERATURE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 396 PAGES

This fine collection of tales captures the sweep and soul of Russian literature, including works by Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Tolstoy along with lesser-known greats. (RUS288, $18.00)

The Winter Queen

The Winter Queen


by Boris Akunin | Andrew Bromfield

  • LITERATURE
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 249 PAGES

Akunin sets a suspected murder among the glitterati of late 19th-century Moscow in this first book in the series of clever detective novels starring the rascal Erast Fandorin, wildly popular in Russia. The series continues with: The Turkish Gambit (RUS263), set during the 1877 Russo-Turkish War; Murder on the Leviathan (RUS225), an homage to Christie; and The Death of Achilles (RUS291), back in Moscow. Fandorin is deputy to the governor-general of czarist Moscow in Special Assignments (RUS371), facing a serial murder and a swindler. (RUS210, $15.00)

War and Peace

War and Peace


by Leo Tolstoy

  • LITERATURE
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 1296 PAGES

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky restore Tolstoy's texture and rhythm for English speakers in this major new translation of his masterpiece. They've won three PEN awards and acclimation for translations that also include Gogol, Dostoyevsky and Bulgakov. (RUS391, $20.00)

More Recommendations

Here are some other groups of books that might be of interest

Longitude provides recommended reading for travelers in partnership with the leading tour operators and travel programs for hundreds of destinations worldwide. We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.