PR-consultant Anna Dyulgerova about favorite books

IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and anyone else not about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, PR-consultant and commercial director of Garage magazine Anna Dulgerova shares her stories about favorite books.

My parents and grandparents formed my habit of reading in childhood: there was always a large library in their home in Simferopol. I especially loved the children's encyclopedia and the collection of works of world literature. When I was growing up, the house had a lot of classics and a lot of Soviet propaganda literature, as in any ordinary Soviet family. Parents always traded waste paper for books, stood in line for them. As a teenager I was never denied the purchase of a new book or magazine. I have innate literacy - from books, because I have read a lot since I was five. Therefore, I am upset that now began to pay less attention to literacy. And by the way, I also read less and sometimes I double-check myself: I started to make mistakes when writing. I read Tolstoy at the age of 14: I read only the "world" from "War and Peace". My relationship with Turgenev is complicated. In his youth, he seemed to me a writer, I read it for fun, but in a more mature age I really fell in love: I return to his “Fathers and Children” again and again. And I also loved Theodore Dreiser and Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga - these are very fascinating books.

I am a documentary filmmaker by education: books in my childhood were more likely to influence the desire to have a liberal arts education. Just in the last years of school there was an opportunity to read and buy books of European existential philosophers and, importantly, to have good literature teachers at school and professors at the institute. They greatly influenced my choice. At the institute, for example, Pavel Eduardovich Lyon, better known as Psoy Korolenko, taught Russian and international literature. Do you understand what he gave us to read? And the Russian language was taught by a wonderful young professor by the name of Preobrazhensky, he chased us according to very complicated rules. At the same time I was very interested in Vonnegut, we read it voraciously, all the books with fellow students and friends.

I completely stopped reading fiction and for the last three years I have been reading only biographies, philosophical treatises and essays.

I do not divide the authors into undervalued and overvalued ones, but I am surprised at how important, for example, the works of Vladimir Sorokin seemed to me to be in 20 years. But Dovlatov for me is a whole universe, he is still undervalued as a writer, despite the great attention paid to him from the moment of his death and all the festivals held in his name.

Now, perhaps, for me there is no person to whose advice on books I constantly listen. Previously, the recommendations of Lev Danilkin and Lyosha Zimin meant a lot to me. I completely stopped reading fiction and for the last three years I have been reading only biographies, philosophical treatises and essays. I like the books published in the Ad Marginem series in conjunction with the Garage Museum. When traveling, especially on an airplane, if I travel alone, I read necessarily. Sometimes I put three completely different books near the bed and I read them in the mood before bedtime. I graduated from the school of fast reading a long time ago, I still can see half a page at a time, which helps me a lot when reading any literature, except philosophical. In our living room there are two walls completely shelves - and they are not completely filled. They give me a lot, and I buy a lot. I would like to use the library, came to visit for books, I even want to make a family seal - "Library of Dülgerovs-Egorshins".

"The beautiful captivates forever. From the English poetry of the XVIII-XIX centuries"

I read a lot in English, especially non-fiction. In French, so far only Vogue Paris with a dictionary, but I dream to read poems. This book of English poetry with me from student days.

"Not Moscow, Not Mecca", "Molla Nassreddin", "Friendship of Nations"

Art group Slavs & Tatars

In my choice there are several books-studies of the art group Slavs & Tatars, and this is very symptomatic: until recently, these artists considered books to be their only media — very large-scale studies on a specific topic in a particular region. I was with Payam Sharifi, one of the artists, on such research journeys and still happily helping him with the translation of Velimir Khlebnikov's quotations, for example. I admire Payam Sharifi, he kind of “re-grabbed” me the love of books. Behind every such paperback edition is a ton of research, travel and translations.

"Cycles and Seasons"

Cy twombly

I love art albums very much and from any important exhibition I bring in an album or catalog. One of these is Cy Twombly's Cycles and Seasons, a book of his large-scale exhibition in Houston in 2008. It was from the title of this book that I took the name for the project Cycles and Seasons, as you can see.

"Ulysses"

James jois

Joyce's Ulysses became a turning book for me as a teenager — I was so impressed with the Russian translation that I tried to read it in original in English.

"Novels and novels"

Kurt Vonnegut, Jerome Salinger

I fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut at the institute: we avidly read and discussed it with friends. We really grew up on him - he is one of the main writers in my life.

"Geographical analogies"

Cyprien Gaillard

Another album in the selection is Cyprien Gaillard, a collection of Polaroid works by one of the most important contemporary artists. There are no words in it, but the photos are more than eloquent.

"One-Way street"

Walter benjamin

For the last ten years I have been reading almost exclusively non-fiction - and very often in English. I brought one of the main books of Walter Benjamin from the trip.

"Our"

Sergey Dovlatov

Dovlatov for me was and remains one of my favorite writers, whose books I know by heart, without exaggeration.

Collected Works

Albert Camus

In high school, I became interested in existentialists and went to college, where wonderful professors taught us. The book Camus in my library and many of my preferences I owe to mentors in my student years.

"Transfiguration"

Gosh Rubchinsky

This is a book by Gosha Rubchinsky - a valuable for me result of his work on New Holland in 2011, where I invited him as one of the participants of the art program. I love Gochin's work for his “eye” and vision — he is very true to himself, whether he is shooting fashion for a magazine, or his bowbook, or a photo for a book. Surprisingly, by the way, to me, all the teenagers in his pictures seem Russian.