I have arbitrarily decided that this summer will be Russian-themed, just because Crime and Punishment has languished on my shelf for too long. Since I haven’t read most of the Russian classics this somewhat makes sense. Ladies and gents, I present to you my reading list this sommar:
(A lot’s backlog from my three years at uni)
- The Saga of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- 佛學 by some bloke
- 吾輩は猫である (Chinese translation) by 夏目漱石
- 中國哲學簡史 by 馮友蘭
- 紅樓夢 by (need you even ask?) 曹雪芹
- Republic by Plato (reread)
- Basic Writings of Nietzsche
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Anna Karenina, ditto
- The Brothers Karamazov or Notes from Underground (I’m tending toward the latter) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
+12. 我所知道的康橋 (散文集) by 徐志摩 (A bargain at $28. Cambridge FTW!)
Will be added to as I work through the list…
photocopiedlife 
I hear “Notes From Underground” is a good one to read before attempting “Crime and Punishment.” I’m currently embroiled in “The Idiot” but I can only read it in small doses. In between chapters, I read another book and then come back to it. I love Dostoyevsky, but he’s a handful to read!
In contrast to authors like Joyce and Proust, I’ve never perceived of Dostoyevsky as particularly hard to read, but you have a good point there – the translation might be deceptively simple but the subject matter is totally not. Maybe this is why I’ve been stuck on Crime and Punishment for three years! =_= I think I’ll attempt Notes from Underground first, thanks! (Just noticed how very depressing my reading list is…)