“This choice is personal, like any choice,” Dmitry Bykov writes on his Facebook page. The author hasn’t attempted to make a list of the best books in human history; rather, he has just chosen his favorite hundred.
Dmitry Bykov is a popular Russian writer, poet and journalist who often visits London to lecture on literature for his Direct Speech project. He is famous for his biting commentary on political and social issues in both poetry and prose.
In 2011 he launched the Grazhdanin Poet ("Citizen Poet") project with the actor Mikhail Yefremov. This was a video series narrating satirical poems on current issues in Russian politics and global affairs that was broadcast on the independent TV channel Dozhd. The videos were extremely popular on YouTube, gaining over 20 million views. Bykov and Yefremov took their poems on tour to New York, Berlin and London, as well as across Russia.
Bykov is also an award-wining fiction writer and literature professor. He is a fan of American literature and is a visiting professor at Princeton University, where he holds seminars on Russian contemporary art that cover cinema, television and performance art as well as literature.
Visit his Facebook page to see the original list in Russian.
The translated list is as follows:
Anna Akhmatova – Poem without a Hero Vasily Aksyonov – The Burn Leonid Andreyev – The Life of Man, The Black Masks Pavel Antokolsky – François Villon Augustine of Hippo – Confessions Viktor Astafyev – The Last Respect Isaac Babel – Red Cavalry Honoré de Balzac – Le Père Goriot Andrei Bely – Petersburg Alexander Blok – Lyric Poems Joseph Brodsky – A Part of Speech Mikhail Bulgakov – Master and Margarita Ivan Bunin – Dark Avenues Vasil Bykov – The Dead Feel No Pain, To Live Till Sunrise Truman Capote – The Grass Harp, Short Stories Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Anton Chekhov – The Duel G.K. Chesterton – The Man Who Was Thursday Charles De Coster – The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel Dante – The Divine Comedy Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe Charles Dickens – The Mystery of Edwin Drood Fyodor Dostoevsky – Demons Arthur Conan Doyle – The Complete Sherlock Holmes Alexandre Dumas – La Reine Margot William Faulkner – The Sound and the Fury Johann Wolfgang Goethe – Faust Nikolai Gogol – Dead Souls Maxim Gorky – Mother Kemsky, Notes from My Diary Jaroslav Hašek – The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk Ernest Hemingway – The Fifth Column and First Forty-Nine Stories, The Old Man and the Sea E.T.A. Hoffmann – The Night Pieces Homer – The Odyssey Horace – Odes Henrik Ibsen – Peer Gynt Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov – The Twelve Chairs, The Little Golden Calf Tove Jansson – Comet in Moominland. The Magician's Hat. Moominpappa at Sea James Joyce – Ulysses Franz Kafka – The Castle Valentin Kataev – The Grass of Oblivion Rudyard Kipling – The Jungle Book, Poems Alexander Kuprin – The Star of Solomon Yury Krymov – The Tanker "Derbent" Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird Leonid Leonov – The Thief Mikhail Lermontov – A Hero of Our Time Osip Mandelstam – Poems, Fourth Prose Thomas Mann – Doctor Faustus Gabriel García Márquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude W. Somerset Maugham – The Moon and Sixpence Guy de Maupassant – Novellas Daphne du Maurier – My Cousin Rachel Vladimir Mayakovsky – About This Herman Melville – Moby Dick Dmitry Merezhkovsky – Peter and Alexis Molière – Tartuffe Yuri Nagibin – Daphne and Chloe - Eras of the Personality Cult, Libertarianism, Stagnation Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire Nikolay Nekrasov – Women in Russian Villages The New Testament Flannery O'Connor – Short Stories Bulat Okudzhava – Travels of the Dilettantes Yury Olesha - Diaries ("Книга прощания") Ovid – Metamorphoses Leonid Panteleyev, Grigori Belykh – The Republic of ShKID Boris Pasternak – Spektorsky Victor Pelevin – The Life of Insects, Numbers Lyudmila Petrushevskaya – The Number One Andrei Platonov – The Epifan Locks Edgar Allan Poe – Short Stories and Novels Alexander Pushkin – Eugene Onegin Erich Maria Remarque – The Night in Lisbon Juan Rulfo – Pedro Páramo J. D. Salinger – Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin – The History of a Town Evgeny Schwartz – Plays William Shakespeare – Hamlet Alexander Sharov – Fairy Tales Mikhail Sholokhov – And Quiet Flows the Don Vasily Shukshin - Characters Alexander Solzhenitsyn – Cancer Ward Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – Far Rainbow, Snail on the Slope, Roadside Picnic William Styron – Set This House on Fire Jonathan Swift – Gulliver's Travels Teffi – Short Stories, Memories Alexei Tolstoy – The Adventures of Nevzorov, or IBIKUS Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina Yury Trifonov – Moscow Novellas Marina Tsvetaeva – The Tale of Sonechka Ivan Turgenev – Fathers and Sons Aleksandr Tvardovsky – Vasili Tyorkin Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Yuri Tynyanov – The Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar Mikhail Uspensky - A place where we don't find ourselves ("Там где нас нет") Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray Nikolay Zabolotsky – Columns, Poems Émile Zola – The Fortune of the Rougons Alexander Zhitinsky – Lost House Mikhail Zoshchenko - Short Stories, Before Sunrise