PR-expert Zlata Nikolaev about favorite books
IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and other heroines about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, the press officer of Qlean shares his stories about favorite books, in the past - RBC press secretary and Slon.ru editor Zlata Nikolayev.
I do not remember how I learned to read: the elder brother went to school when I was three - it seems, then I learned. My first books are “A Book about Delicious and Healthy Food” of 1954 edition, some stories about “when Lenin was small”, then primers, where Lenin was again. But in general, we didn’t have any forbidden editions in our family: I read something to what I reached. When I was eight years old, I read "The Masters and Margarita", all Dumas, including "Queen Margot" with head chopping, and at ten years everything about Angelica (both the king and the sultan is the first porn in my life). And still "Emmanuel" in a cover from newspapers, and, to be honest, I do not advise anyone.
At seventeen, I won the city Olympiad in Russian language and literature. As I remember, I wrote an essay on "Sail" and the picture by Aivazovsky. The prize was the book "Three Comrades" Remarque, which struck me. A little later, Boll was struck with his stories about the First World War and that the soldier had lost his virginity before his death (seemingly a trifle, but important). Now I am learning German in order to, among other things, read it sometime in the original.
Among all the books, I truly hate non-fiction and business literature. Firstly, they are not important for translation, and secondly, often this is simply bad. On duty, I read a lot of this garbage and will never forget how my boss gave me zero five vodka and the book "Overcoming Myself", and also a book of poems Letov. The book about overcoming was then stolen from the house by someone who wanted to overcome himself, and Yegor Letov still remains with me.
I read sporadically what fell into my hands. For example, it is perfectly normal for me to buy a “new Ustinov” on a plane - and after reading it, give it to someone. At the same time I have not been able to finish off Shchegl for half a year, which seems to have been read by everyone around me - because it’s boring and too many details. I asked my husband, who reads like not being in himself and can master a book in the evening: "Friend, and what am I reading?" The answer, to be honest, surprised me: "Women." She laughed, of course, and then she remembered that she had been buying the last year: Jojo Moyes, Fanny Flagg, Dina Rubin, Ulitskaya and a book about Malalu Yusufzai.
My work is somehow connected with the texts - and at some point the words become inflamed, start to hurt: there is a stamp on the stamp. When this happens and you can squeeze out only "company X invested in company Y", I open the "Gift" of Nabokov. A friend of mine once told me that this is a book that you can eat, eat, eat from any place - and you will find words. And I fill up - I restore the balance of words in the body. And I can again write about the company X.
Anatoly Mariengof
"Cynics"
It so happened that many books that somehow became significant for me fell into my hands by chance or from friends. “Cynics,” a battered paperback book, brought to me by my friend and colleague of the year in 2012. I took her with me on a plane to kill time, and, as they say, disappeared from the first pages, on which the main character discourages her younger brother Gog to go to the front ("" Understand Olga, I love my homeland. "Olga stops jerking her legs , turns his face to him and says seriously: “It’s all because of Gog that you didn’t finish the gymnasium” ") and complains to his beloved about stomach pain and constipation. When I studied at the Historical Institute (IAI, RSUH), “everyday history” was in fashion. “Cynics,” with their experiences, passions, unsightly details, and at the same time chronicles of revolution and civil war, for me, everyday everyday poetry is subtle, sad, and terrible.
Petr Lutsyk, Alexey Samoryadov
"Wild Field"
On election day to the State Duma on December 4, 2011 (from which the protests of white ribbons, “occupation” and other movements of the eleventh and twelfth years began), my colleagues from Slon.ru conducted an online broadcast of these elections the whole day: results, incidents, stuffing and carousel. After nine hours of continuous work, I asked my colleagues for an hour to congratulate the girlfriend on her birthday, rushed to the party and met a colleague and senior comrade Yuri Saprykin there. I do not remember what I told him about the events of the day, but I returned with him to the editorial office (which he had shortly before headed).
We drank, and Yuri told about a cool book of screenplays and tales of Soviet scriptwriters. A couple of days later I found this book on my desktop and then read all night (more precisely, two or three nights with breaks to sleep). A student of VGIK who went to crime for the sake of a former girl, a young doctor living in the wilderness, villagers left without land are all such relatives that you can open and read from any place. Although in reality, all these stories are firmly associated with the strange, happy and hopeful period of civil protests, from which, as is now clear, nothing good came of it.
Zakhar Prilepin
"Sankya"
In a conditionally decent society it is embarrassing to admit some things. For example, that you are Orthodox and go to church, or that your most favorite delicacy is sprat in a tomato with green peas. Or that one of the novels of the writer Prilepin in the list of your favorite books. I bought it in the book "Moscow" about ten years ago just out of curiosity and then reread it many times.
"Sanka" for me is a manifesto of youthful rebellion and struggle (sometimes only for the sake of struggle) in the midst of a damn thing, injustice and a hopeless winter. The strongest scene that I paint in colors so far about and for no reason is the funeral scene of the father of the protagonist: winter, snowstorm, gray snow, a coffin dragged along the ground for many kilometers. Sometimes it seems to me that I live in this scene - and not to say that it does not suit me.
Jack Kerouac
"Dharma Tramps"
The world's best book about the road. About the road, which is so often lacking for all of us - don’t understand where, don’t understand where, by jumping onto the roof of the freight trainer, earning scratches and abrasions. I grow up - I will definitely go to the north of the United States or to Canada.
Thomas Venclova
"Vilnius. A city in Europe"
My roots - Russian, Polish, Jewish - always make themselves felt, painfully or not. I grew up in Lithuania, in a small (by the way, third largest) city in the country, but I always knew that my ancestors were from Vilnius. Therefore, I perceive Vilnius as a homeland even more than my native city. Thomas Venclova definitely perceives this city in the same way: this book, on the one hand, is about history and how a variety of people and nations got along on a small piece of land, and on the other, about great love for this city.
Tove Jansson
"Moomin troll and comet"
One of the first books I read on my own and reread five hundred times. "He was expanding quickly, and suddenly they saw a sea of clouds in front of him. From above, it seemed so soft and beautiful that I wanted to get into it with my feet, dance and enjoy the air in it" - the best description of desires I have ever heard. There is one more desire: I want to make a tattoo with Freken Snork from the age of twenty;
Ann Fogarty
"Properly dressed wife"
The genius book, which today is perceived as a hymn of misguine, and at one time — sixty years ago — served as a song of progress. Best friend dragged her to Non / fiction-2011, and I could not part with her. Where else can you find out that you should go shopping in a make-up, a decent woman should have five peignoirs, and a bra strap sticking out from under her clothes is permissible only if you are Sir Gypsy.
Emile Zola
"Creation"
The most painful book about love, violence and accepting this violence. As they say, read and never let them do this to themselves.
Yurga Ivanauskaite
"Placebo"
Pelevin was a cult Russian writer of the nineties. And in Lithuania we had Jurga: “The Witch and the Rain”, “Children of the Moon”, “Journey to Shambhala” - an incredible mix of Buddhism, occultism and philosophy. In the book that you will not read anyway, because it was not translated into Russian, the main character wakes up and realizes that she is dead - even her native cat reacts strangely to her. And here, as they say, the most interesting begins.
Ruta Vanagayte
"Mūsiškiai"
In fact, the first popular analysis of the topic of war, oppression of Jews and the Holocaust in Lithuanian. This is a strange Lithuanian phenomenon - like, yes, three hundred thousand Jews died, something seemed to be there, and here is a sign in the Jewish quarter. But who is to blame? Keep silent. Ruta didn’t keep silent and raised a really painful topic for everyone in Lithuania: at home now she is almost persona non grata.