1930s Quote by Fiona Bruce

'The Master and Margarita' is deeply to do with the unconscious. It is a story about a man who writes a story in a…

— Simon McBurney

“A nineteenth-century Russian novel and vodka accompanied each other perfectly.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

I love 19th-century Russian literature, the avant garde, the Soviet period.

— Amor Towles

“A nineteenth-century Russian novel and vodka accompanied each other perfectly. Reading a novel while one sipped vodka legitimized the drink, while the drink made…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

'Pale Fire' by Vladimir Nabokov was bloody hard work but really thrilling.

— Domhnall Gleeson

The book that made me decide to go into Russian literature was 'Anna Karenina,' which I first read in high school. The thing that…

— Elif Batuman

The book that really, really shaped my politics and has forever is Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," which is a novel based on terrible…

— Nat Hentoff

“The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert Camus (1951);…

— Timothy Snyder

I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.

— Denise Mina

Of all the many memoirs by former Soviet officials, Palazchenko's is among the best written and also the most objective. Even his descriptions of…

— Jack F. Matlock, Jr

I think every writer has a book that haunts them, and on some level, every book you write is a reaction to it. 'Lolita'…

— Marisha Pessl

Pavel Palazchenko has given us a well-written, inside account of Gorbachev's and Shevardnadze's diplomacy. Remarkably objective, it is full of insights, makes fascinating reading,…

— Jack F. Matlock, Jr