I can’t imagine a cleverer or more perverse way of presenting “the first political biography” of Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1975) than as if from the conscience-addled Sholokhov’s perspective.

In which we review The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessions from Russian Literature, by Viv Groskop, and Restless Empire, by Ian Barnes.

We review books of fiction (Chekhov, Remizov, the Brothers Strugatsky, and Anderson) and an enticing cookbook.

In which we review books on empire and disasters.

Reviews of three books and a movie for Russophiles.

In which we review a novel about Bulgakov and his love, Margarita (Mikhail and Margarita, by Julie Himes); Soviet Salvage, by Catherine Walworth; and The House of Government, by Yuri Slezkine.

In which we review Amy Knight's Orders to Kill, Linor Goralik's Found Life, a new translation of Monday Starts on Saturday, and the new novel Gogol's Head.

In which we review three books and a DVD we like. See the book reviews section for detailed reviews.

In which we review a mystery, a Gulag guard's memoir, a parable of the avant-garde, and a collection of Valentin Rasputin's prose.

In which we review 12 titles that have been teetering in our review pile and that Russophiles should love.

Reviews of "Lenin on the Train," "Don't Let my Baby Do Rodeo," and "Mother Tongue".

Reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson. Also short reviews of The Man with the Poison Gun by Serhii Plokhy, Bears in the Streets by Lisa Dickey, and Hard Times by Vasily Sleptsov.