Russia

Bilingual author and translator with his pick of the five must-reads by - and about - Nabokov. Says a revisionist biography of the writer is due, which comes to terms with the Jewish influence on his work

Author and former Reuters correspondent in Moscow chooses books on the Caucasus and says the only language Russia understands is unconditional surrender, whether they are ruled by the Tsars, the Communists or Putin

The author and academic talks about KGB tricks to get American victims of the Great Depression in Russia to take Soviet citizenship. 'They had to hand over their American passports temporarily and never saw them again'

From the days it was known as Muscovy to the Russian Empire described by the great novelists of the 19th century, historian Andrei Maylunas recommends books that give a feel for the country. Two are works of history, one is notes from a visiting ambassador in the 16th century, two are novels. All are entertaining to read and key to understanding the present.

Rated by the British Library as among the top ten foreign poets based in London, Nigar Hasan-Zadeh discusses a range of books—from love stories, to poetry, to oil field reporting—to boost our insight into Azerbaijan.

Robert Service, Professor of Russian Studies at Oxford, when forced to choose between Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, says Stalin was definitely the worst of the lot. He takes a look at the dynamics of totalitarian Russia, gleaning insights from Thucydides to Orwell.

From Eisenstein to Tarkovsky, film scholar Ian Christie looks at the titans of Russian cinema and draws attention to the pre-Revolutionary Siberian gold merchant's daughter who opened a cinema purely for the upper classes.

Dr Stephen Lucas is a partner in the banking group of an international law firm, Linklaters LLP and a student of Soviet law. He recommends books on communist legislation in the former USSR

Best-selling author Thomas Keneally explains that the Cold War biographies couldn’t afford to say that Stalin was attractive, or that Lenin was magnetic, but they were, because otherwise people wouldn't have followed them. He picks some great introductions to Revolutionary Russia.

Award-winning reporter and novelist Vanora Bennett says there are no superlatives too superlative for Anna Politkovskaya, who, after three books and innumerable investigative reporting trips to Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow