Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol | 
Cancer Ward
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | 
Pnin
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
A Hero of Our Time
by Mikhail Lermontov | 
The First Circle
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | 
Oblomov
by Ivan Goncharov | 
Laughter in the Dark
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Despair
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Mirgorod
by Nikolai Gogol | 
The Gift
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Fathers and Children
by Ivan Turgenev | 
King, Queen, Knave
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Transparent Things
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Mary
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
A Gentle Creature and Other Stories
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | 
Glory
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
The Eye
by Vladimir Nabokov | 
Home of the Gentry
by Ivan Turgenev | 
Jamilia
by Chingiz Aitmatov |
One of the delights of Russian literature, a tour de force that has been compared to the best of Nabokov and Bulgakov, Yuri Olesha's novella Envy brings together cutting social satire, slapstick humor, and a wild visionary streak. Andrei is a model Soviet citizen, a swaggeringly self-satisfied mogul of the food industry who intends to revolutionize modern life with mass-produced sausage. Nikolai is a loser. Finding him drunk in the gutter, Andrei gives him a bed for the night and a job as a gofer. Nikolai takes what he can, but that doesn't mean he's grateful. Griping, sulking, grovelingly abject, he despises everything Andrei believes in, even if he envies him his every breath.