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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Just for fun, I've been asking Bookworm guests for lists of their favorite books,

and today we've got two. Later in the show, Colt filmmaker John Waters tells us his

favorites, but first we have Russian scholar Elif Batuman, the author of the possessed,

adventures with Russian books and the people who read them. I asked her if she'd give us a list

of ten Russian masterpieces for the uninitiated, a kind of tourist guide to Russian

literature. So, if you'd never tackled any of these books, where would you start, Elif?

I start with Anakranina, because it's my favorite novel ever written, and it's beautiful,

and it's what got me into Russian literature to begin with.

So that comes first.

Number two is if you liked Anakrenna, you'll love Eugene Anjigen,

because it's kind of the miniature.

It was written before Anakrenna.

It's by Pushkin, who's the most famous Uber writer in Russia,

you know, more than Telstoy and more than Dostoevsky.

It's kind of this miniature, beautiful version of Anakranina in verse, and it's lovely.

Whose version do you like best?

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