Book cover of The Nose

Book description

'Strangely enough, I mistook it for a gentleman at first. Fortunately I had my spectacles with me so I could see it was really a nose.'

With this pair of absurd, comic stories Gogol indulges his imagination and delights readers.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Nose as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I grew up speaking Russian with my grandparents and always yearned to read classic Russian literature in the original. Perhaps it was my great love for those grandparents or the stories they told that led me to major in Russian at Yale University. Like any translated work, Russian literature loses something in translation. Still, it gains something, too, effectively juxtaposing a culture that is neither Eastern nor Western yet entirely alien to most of us today.

Satire, dark humor, and perfect pacing make this story a laugh-out-loud work, at least to me. Despite being ridiculous, its delivery is straight-faced, which…

From Yun's list on magically real.

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Book cover of Citizen Orlov

Citizen Orlov by Jonathan Payne,

Not every fishmonger can be a secret agent.

Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who answers a phone call meant for a secret agent and stumbles into a hidden…

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