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How books help Lucy Dacus write music

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A long story: why record numbers of readers turned to doorstopper classics in lockdown

Reading Remedy: what to read to transport you to a good night out

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Reading Remedy: what to read if you’re yearning for a big night out

From Dostoevsky to Nabokov and beyond, Russia’s cultural capital has long been a literary haven. Here are five crucial books to read before you visit.

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Reading lists

Book your holiday: St. Petersburg

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Extracts

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

30 Festive Dramas and Stories

A BBC Christmas Collection

A sparkling seasonal anthology of BBC dramas and readings 
 
Christmas is the perfect time to curl up with a good story, and this cracking collection brings you 30 wonderfully diverse tales inspired by this most special of seasons. From Santa Claus, gift-giving and family gatherings, to an unexpected encounter in a snowstorm and an alternative take on the Nativity, they're sure to get you in the festive mood. 
 
Here are modern readings of classics such as Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Tree', Anton Chekhov's 'At Christmas Time', Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Fir Tree', O Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi', Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Christmas Storms and Sunshine' and Leo Tolstoy's 'Papa Panov's Special Christmas'. Alongside them is some superb short fiction by contemporary authors, including Stella Duffy ('South'), Paul McVeigh ('Daddy Christmas'), Laura Barnett ('Survivors'), and nine delightful stories by Alexander McCall Smith. Among the stellar narrators are Don Gilet, Nina Sosanya, Hannah Gordon, Stephanie Cole and Meera Syal. 
 
Interspersed with these are a range of spellbinding plays, including Rachel Joyce's poignant Christmas by the Lake; festive action comedy Lena Marsh, Live and Schticking! by Jeremy Front; a very unusual and very dangerous Santa in The Morpeth Carol by Timothy X Atack; and Robert Hudson and Marie Phillips' epistolary animal tale, Some Hay in a Manger, introduced by Stephen Fry. All feature star casts including Niamh Cusack, Robert Lindsay, Sam Troughton, Clare Corbett, Tamsin Greig and Joel Fry. 
 
Heartwarming and heartfelt, comic and bittersweet, moving and magical, these fantastic, evocative stories are a real Christmas treat. 
 
Note: Chapter metadata updated in January 2023. 
 
Contents 
Christmas by the Lake by Rachel Joyce 
Christmas Short Stories by Alexander McCall Smith: 
· 'Motordrome' 
· 'The Revenge, or Otherwise, of Herbie Bontemps' 
· 'How to Escape in Gaelic' 
· 'The Colourful Life of Cousin Grace' 
· 'Good President Wenceslas' 
The Christmas Present by Ben Crompton 
Christmas Compass: Series 1: 
· 'North' by Malachy Tallack 
· 'South' by Stella Duffy 
· 'East' by Ruth Thomas 
· 'West' by Mike McCormack 
A Time to Dance by Lucy Gannon 
Christmas Compass: Series 2 by Alexander McCall Smith 
· 'Winter Journey' 
· 'In the DRC' 
· 'Primatologist' 
· 'On The Island' 
Midnight at Christmas by Elliott Kerrigan 
'The Fir Tree' by Hans Christian Andersen 
'At Christmas Time'by Anton Chekhov 
'Papa Panov's Special Christmas' by Leo Tolstoy 
Some Hay in a Manger by Robert Hudson and Marie Phillips 
'Daddy Christmas' by Paul McVeigh 
'Christmas Storms and Sunshine'by Elizabeth Gaskell 
The Morpeth Carol by Timothy X Atack 
'Survivors' by Laura Barnett 
Lena Marsh, Live and Shticking!by Jeremy Front 
'A Christmas Tree' by Charles Dickens 
'The Gift of the Magi' by O Henry 
Get Santa by Peter Gibbs 
'Home' by Christine Dwyer Hickey 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Cossacks

Dmitry Andreich Olenin, in the hope of escaping the hollowness of his privilege, joins the army and heads to the Caucasus. There among the foothills, he will meet the Cossacks: a people he considers to be at one with the land. In their company he will hunt, he will drink, he will fall in love and, slowly, he will begin to understand that between people, between cultures, there is often a space that cannot be traversed...

Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. 
 
Dmitry Andreich Olenin, in the hope of escaping the hollowness of his privilege, joins the army and heads to the Caucasus. There among the foothills he will meet the Cossacks: a people he considers to be at one with the land. In their company he will hunt, he will drink, he will fall in love and, slowly, he will begin to understand that between people, between cultures, there is often a space that cannot be traversed... 
 
'It is the richness of Tolstoy's genius that strikes us most in this story' Virginia Woolf

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Tula province. He studied at the University of Kazan, then led a life of pleasure until 1851 when he joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus. He established his reputation as a writer with The Sebastopol Sketches (1855-6). After a period in St Petersburg and abroad, he married, had thirteen children, managed his vast estates in the Volga Steppes and wrote War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). A Confession (1879-82) marked a spiritual crisis in his life, and in 1901 he was excommuincated by the Russian Holy Synod. He died in 1910, in the course of a dramatic flight from home, at the railway station of Astapovo.

Full-cast dramatisations of War and Peace, Anna Karenina & more

The Leo Tolstoy BBC Radio Drama Collection

BBC Radio adaptations of Tolstoy's three major novels, plus a reading of his profound philosophical memoir, an original drama based on his life and a bonus documentary 
 
One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel Resurrection; his autobiographical essay A Confession; Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy; and In Our Time: Tolstoy. 
 
War and Peace - 1805, and Napoleon Bonaparte is threatening the peace of Europe. In St Petersburg and Moscow, the lives of three aristocratic families are about to be changed forever... This epic dramatisation stars Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Amanda Redman and Emily Mortimer. 
 
Anna Karenina - In 19th Century Russia, bored high society wife Anna embarks on an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky - but her passion sets her on a path to self-destruction. Starring Teresa Gallagher and Toby Stephens. 
 
Resurrection - Serving on the jury in a murder trial, Prince Dimitri recognises the young prostitute in the dock as Katerina Maslova, the girl he seduced years before. Knowing he is partly responsible for her plight, he attempts to atone for his mistakes and find redemption. Katherine Igoe and Richard Dillane star in this powerful adaptation of Tolstoy's final novel. 
 
A Confession - Read by Joss Ackland, this compelling religious testament describes Tolstoy's search for God, faith and the meaning of life. 
 
Mrs Tolstoy - In his fifties, Leo Tolstoy has a spiritual crisis. Converting to Christianity, he gives up writing, stops sleeping with his wife, won't see his children and wants to give away all his possessions. But Sofya is ready to fight for her husband and family... Starring Ian McDiarmid and Haydn Gwynne. 
 
In Our Time: Tolstoy - Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tolstoy's life and writings, exploring his urgent desire to represent real life in his work, how he strove to convey truth to the reader - and why he ultimately gave up on literature to concentrate on religious and political philosophy. 
 
Please note that the chapter headings have been updated as of 10th February 2022. 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

BBC Radio adaptations of Tolstoy's three major novels, plus a reading of his profound philosophical memoir, an original drama based on his life and a bonus documentary 
 
One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel Resurrection; his autobiographical essay A Confession; Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy; and In Our Time: Tolstoy. 
 
War and Peace - 1805, and Napoleon Bonaparte is threatening the peace of Europe. In St Petersburg and Moscow, the lives of three aristocratic families are about to be changed forever... This epic dramatisation stars Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Amanda Redman and Emily Mortimer. 
 
Anna Karenina - In 19th Century Russia, bored high society wife Anna embarks on an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky - but her passion sets her on a path to self-destruction. Starring Teresa Gallagher and Toby Stephens. 
 
Resurrection - Serving on the jury in a murder trial, Prince Dimitri recognises the young prostitute in the dock as Katerina Maslova, the girl he seduced years before. Knowing he is partly responsible for her plight, he attempts to atone for his mistakes and find redemption. Katherine Igoe and Richard Dillane star in this powerful adaptation of Tolstoy's final novel. 
 
A Confession - Read by Joss Ackland, this compelling religious testament describes Tolstoy's search for God, faith and the meaning of life. 
 
Mrs Tolstoy - In his fifties, Leo Tolstoy has a spiritual crisis. Converting to Christianity, he gives up writing, stops sleeping with his wife, won't see his children and wants to give away all his possessions. But Sofya is ready to fight for her husband and family... Starring Ian McDiarmid and Haydn Gwynne. 
 
In Our Time: Tolstoy - Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tolstoy's life and writings, exploring his urgent desire to represent real life in his work, how he strove to convey truth to the reader - and why he ultimately gave up on literature to concentrate on religious and political philosophy. 
 
Please note that the chapter headings have been updated as of 10th February 2022. 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
 
First published 1869 (War and Peace), 1877 (Anna Karenina), 1879 (A Confession), 1899 (Resurrection)

BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

War and Peace

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the stellar cast of this landmark BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Leo Tolstoy’s epic saga. 
 
‘Tolstoy’s imagined world is recreated on air brilliantly by the extraordinary cast’ The Spectator 
 
One of the greatest novels of all time, War and Peace explores historical, social, ethical and religious issues on a scale never before attempted in fiction, and reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society during the 19th Century. 
 
Adapted for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker, this riveting, wide-ranging drama follows the fortunes of four Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Told in flashback over ten episodes, it moves from fashionable society soirées in St Petersburg and Moscow to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino, as protagonists Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai describe to their children the events that shaped their lives and those of every Russian who lived through this turbulent time. 
 
First broadcast on New Year's Day 2015, this dynamic full-cast dramatisation features specially composed music by Stephen Warbeck. It stars Paterson Joseph as Pierre, Phoebe Fox as Natasha, Natasha Little as Marya and Sam Reid as Nikolai, part of a stunning cast including Alun Armstrong, Simon Russell Beale and Roger Allam. 
 
Duration: 10 hours approx.

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the cast of BBC Radio 4's full-cast dramatisation from 2015.

Tolstoy’s imagined world is recreated on air brilliantly by the extraordinary cast

The cast is extraordinary, but pre-eminent is Harriet Walter in a masterclass of apparently effortless radio acting

Leo Tolstoy (1828 –1910) was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852–1856), and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. Tolstoy's fiction includes dozens of short stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, and Hadji Murad. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays.

Anna Karenina (Vintage Classic Russians Series)

'One of the greatest love stories in world literature' Vladimir Nabokov 
 
Anna is a beautiful, intelligent woman whose passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky leads her to ruin. But her story is also about a search for meaning, and by twinning it with that of Levin, an awkward idealist whose happy marriage and domestic trials form the backdrop for a similar quest, Tolstoy creates a rich and complex masterpiece that has captured the imagination of readers for decades. 
 
'I've read and re-read this novel and every time I find another layer in the story' Philippa Gregory 
 
 TRANSLATED BY LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDE 
 
The Vintage Classics Russians Series - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

The Vintage Classics Russians Series - sumptuous editions of  the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history

'One of the greatest love stories in world literature' Vladimir Nabokov 
 
Anna is a beautiful, intelligent woman whose passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky leads her to ruin. But her story is also about a search for meaning, and by twinning it with that of Levin, an awkward idealist whose happy marriage and domestic trials form the backdrop for a similar quest, Tolstoy creates a rich and complex masterpiece that has captured the imagination of readers for decades. 
 
'I've read and re-read this novel and every time I find another layer in the story' Philippa Gregory 
 
TRANSLATED BY LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDE 
 
VINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

One of the greatest love stories in world literature

Tolstoy's historical and human sweep is breathtaking. His vision, humanity and his knowledge that love and pain are at the heart of life is the most important of all the profound truths revealed in this great novel

In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy got totally inside the mind of a woman who is prepared to lose everything for the sake of man and who is so much in love that she commits suicide. I don't like her as a woman, but I think it is a brilliant portrait, unequalled in literature

I've read and re-read this novel and every time I find another layer in the story

I first read Anna Karenina 20 years ago when travelling across the Peruvian desert on a long bus journey, and it has stayed with me ever since

Anyone who has read Anna Karenina will be aware of its extraordinary power as an epic psychological tale of a woman who gives up her husband and son for the sake of an affair with a handsome army officer. It has humour but, as with all of Tolstoy's works, it is completely without sentimentality

I just love this classic romance about a married mother who succumbs to an unsuitable lover and becomes pregnant by him, which of course results in all sorts of pressures and heartache. The best love story ever told

Probably one of the greatest novelistic treatments of the torments of love

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 1910.

War and Peace (Vintage Classic Russians Series)

'If you've never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don't read War and Peace, you live it' The Times 
 
Tolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostov. 
 
 'It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it' Andrew Marr 
 
 The Vintage Classics Russians Series - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

'If you've never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don't read War and Peace, you live it' The Times 
 
Tolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostov. 
 
'It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it' Andrew Marr 
 
VINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

If you've never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don't read War and Peace, you live it

This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and "improvements" that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky's supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy's masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded."

Vladimir E. Alexandrov,  Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,

It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it

Reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time, unencumbered by the pidgin archaisms of previous translations, ringing with mastery and truth

Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

It may sound pretentious, or strange, but I can remember the weeks (three weeks, to be precise) I spent reading War and Peace as a peak experience of sustained excitement and deep delight. Part of the delight was the largeness and strangeness of this world - the sense of the vastness and extremes of Russia, the unboundedness of everything

There is a good argument to say that any decent library must make room for War and Peace

War and Peace... is gleefully experimental... Tolstoy is the greatest miniaturist in the history of the novel. He is economical... [An] outlandish, wonderful novel

The greatest of all novels. Read it again, to test and savour the infallible truth of Tolstoy’s understanding of every stage and aspect of human life

To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane

In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence

Highly and deservedly praised...is a remarkable achievement.

Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness.

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 1910. 
 
Together, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for their translations of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) and their translation of Dostoevsky’s Demons was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.

Leo Tolstoy

Full Cast

Kate Phillips

Alfred Enoch

Rory Kinnear

A BBC Radio Full-Cast Dramatisation

A brand-new BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of Tolstoy's epic love story 
 
Beautiful and intelligent young Anna suffers in her loveless marriage, dreaming of the romantic life she should be living, and the love that others around her should be sharing honestly with one another. When she meets the dashing Vronsky he seems to offer everything she has been craving, but the cost she will pay is higher than she could have imagined. 
 
Meanwhile Konstantin Levin, a gentle landowner who shares Anna's belief in sincerity, attempts to channel his beliefs into his land, his family, and his love for beautiful aristocrat Kitty, and must risk everything to discover his capacity for life. 
 
Dramatised by the award-winning Linda Marshall Griffiths, Anna Karenina is a powerful story of passion, infidelity, vengeance and retribution. Starring Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders), Alfred Enoch (Harry Potter films) and Rory Kinnear (James Bond films), this brand-new adaptation is an epic and compelling production that will stay with each listener for a lifetime. 
 
Written by Leo Tolstoy 
Dramatised by Linda Marshall Griffiths 
 
Cast 
Anna - Kate Phillips 
Vronsky - Alfred Enoch 
Karenin - Rory Kinnear 
Levin - Sacha Dhawan 
Kitty - Anneika Rose 
Stiva - Adetomiwa Edun 
Dolly - Rosalie Craig 
Seryozha - Rafferty Railton 
Countess Vronskaya - Leah Marks 
Kuzma/Priest/Porter - Hasan Dixon 
Princess/Nurse/Madame Kartasova - Georgie Glen 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 30 April - 14 May 2023 
©2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

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