Quote Originally Posted by Johanna
I bought this book today at a shop in London:
The only thing I read from this is "Спать хочется" by Chekhov and it's not my favourite from his short stories.

"Станционный смотритель" I probably read but I don't remember what it was about at all. Pushkin's novels are quite good in general and very readable. Pushkin is, as the saying goes, "наше всё".

Quote Originally Posted by Оля
This novell is written in quite a dry, non-artistic language. Of course, the translation must have been done in a better English. I read it long ago, and all I remember now is the terribly dry, formal style of the book. As far as I know, the author himself didn't consider his novell a work of art. He was not a writer, he was a публицист (Lingvo gives "writer of political essays" for this word).
I liked it to when I read it at school. I know it's criticised a lot and not considered great literature but I enjoyed its plot nonetheless.

I'm now making my way through "The Dead Souls"/"Мёртвые души" by Gogol. Haven't managed it at school.

Quote Originally Posted by Johanna
I have super-simple and unsophisticated taste in poetry. Something about nature, love, loneliness or patriotism that rhymes!
Me and poetry don't go well together either. The only things I ever enjoyed were Pushkin's verses/fairy-tales but I think I'm starting to learn to appreciate it a bit more. I was really impressed by one poem/verse when I was a teen -- Rudyard Kipling's "If." It was my favourite for years.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!