The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
SKU: 85924945134

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them

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The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read ThemOne of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED ABSURDLY MELANCHOLICALLY BEAUTIFULLY TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year


THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED--ABSURDLY MELANCHOLICALLY BEAUTIFULLY --TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS

No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel's last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel's secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

Batuman's subsequent pieces--for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the London Review of Books-- have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva.

Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence--including her own.



Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Published: 02/16/2010
ISBN: 9780374532185
Pages: 296
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.60w x 0.81d
Award: National Book Critics Circle Award - Finalist
Award: Literary Award - Runner-Up

Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/15/2009 pg. 57
Publishers Weekly 11/02/2009 pg. 43
Library Journal 11/15/2009 pg. 64
Booklist 02/15/2010 pg. 21
New York Times Book Review 03/21/2010 pg. 13
New York Times Book Review 03/28/2010 pg. 20
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/05/2010 pg. 30
Entertainment Weekly 01/07/2011 pg. 74
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/08/2010 pg. 28
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SKU: 85924945134

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Tara
Bozeman, US
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This book wasn't bad, but wasn't my cup of tea. It's highly disappointing because the storyline is so original. There is no real conflict or resolution, so the entire thing feels flat. As a lover of omegaverse books, I know there is a ton of variety out there, and ov is really up to the author. But this one is weird. Omegas have multiple scent glands all over their bodies and go into week long heats every month. Alphas have knots in the middle of their shaft instead of the base, and the knot doesn't always swell, no explanation of when or why. It doesn't engage at all when the mouth is in play. I also didn't enjoy the author's writing style. Each paragraph is only 1 or 2 sentences long, and the entire book reads very stacato. The conversations are stiff and unnatural feeling. Everything is very repetitive, both in word choice and in thought. The same thing is repeated 3 or 4 times over a single page, multiple times over. I ended up doing so much skimming. The first 50% of the book is all slow burn, and the last 50% is almost straight mediocre spice. This wouldn't have been all bad if the grammar and spelling errors didn't start at the exact same time. Tongue is repeatedly misspelled in the middle of the spice.
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This is the true definition of Cozy Omegaverse. LA wedding coordinator meets her pack at the location for a couple’s destination wedding. Low angst because they are scent matched high heat with heats and knots. Everything you love about this genre with very little anxiety. Simply a fun experience to read and a book I will comeback to when I’m in a slump. I simply love reading this book
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Iputmybookdownforthis
West Palm Beach, US
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This was a solid read for the ABO universe. The characters are great. The smut scenes were well written. And the town is so cute I want to go there. It didn’t have much character development it just felt like I was getting to the characters as they were getting to know each other.
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