| Description |
vi, 217 pages ; 22 cm |
| Summary |
A literary self-help memoir about using the Russian Classics to find the answer to life's most important questions.Viv Groskop has discovered the meaning of life in Russian literature. As she knows from personal experience, everything that has ever happened in life has already happened in these novels: from not being sure what to do with your life (Anna Karenina) to being in love with someone who doesn't love you back enough (The Master and Margarita),or being socially anxious about your appearance (all of Chekhov's work). This is a literary self-help memoir, with examples from the author's own life that reflect the lessons of literature, only in a much less poetic way than Tolstoy probably intended, and with an emphasis on being excessively paranoid about having an emerging moustache on your upper lip, just like Natasha in War and Peace. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [207]-214). |
| Contents |
How to know who you really are : Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy (or : don't throw yourself under a train) -- How to face up to whatever life throws at you : Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (or : don't leave your wife when she's pregnant) -- How to be optimistic in the face of despair : Requiem by Anna Akhmatova (or : don't wear tight shoes on prison visits) -- How to survive unrequited love : A month in the country by Ivan Turgenev (or : don't fall in love with your best friend's wife) -- How to not to be your own worst enemy : Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (or : don't kill your best frind in a duel) -- How to overcome inner conflict : Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (or : don't kill old ladies for money) -- How to live with the feeling that the grass is always greener : Three sisters by Anton Chekhov (or : don't keep going on about Moscow) -- How to keep going when things go wrong : One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (or : don't forget to take your spoon to prison with you) -- How to have a sense of humour about life : The master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (or : don't get run over by a train after talking to Satan) -- How to avoid hypocrisy : Dead souls by Nikolai Gogol (or : don't buy non-existent peasants as part of a get-rich-quick scheme) -- How to know what matters in life : War and peace by Lev Tolstoy (or : don't try to kill Napoleon). |
| Subject |
Groskop, Viv -- Books and reading.
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Groskop, Viv.
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Russian literature -- History and criticism.
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Russian literature -- Appreciation.
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Russian literature -- Themes, motives.
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Russian literature -- Influence.
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Authors, Russian.
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Journalists -- Great Britain -- Biography.
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Self-realization.
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Self-actualization (Psychology)
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Conduct of life.
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| Genre/Form |
Literary criticism.
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Autobiographies.
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| ISBN |
9781419732720 (hardback) |
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1419732722 (hardback) |
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