Describes how Vasya Kandinsky's creative life was profoundly shaped by a neurological condition called synesthesia which caused him to experienced colors as sounds and sounds as colors.

Presents a reconstruction of the eighteenth-century empress's life that covers her efforts to engage Russia in the cultural life of Europe, her creation of the Hermitage, and her numerous scandal-free romantic affairs.

Hailed for her "fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia" (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren...

"The epic tale of the rise to power of Russia's current president-- of his emergence from shrouded obscurity and deprivation to become one of the most consequential and complicated leaders in modern history. Former New York Times Moscow bureau chief Steven Lee Myers has followed Vladimir Putin's path for many years, and gives us the fullest, most absorbing account we have of his rise to power. This gripping narrative elucidates a cool and calculating...

On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium--a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story--complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. He shows how Litvinenko's murder foreshadowed the killings of other Kremlin critics, from Washington, DC, to Moscow, and...

"Vladimir Putin is the world's most dangerous man. Alone among world leaders, he has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He invades his neighbors, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections, and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. His regime is autocratic and deeply corrupt. But that is only half the story. Unflinching, hard-hitting, and objective, Philip...

"They were the Princess Dianas of their day-- perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses-- Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanov-- were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore and their privileged lifestyle. Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in...

In 2004, in a stunning upset against the two-time defending champion Serena Williams, seventeen-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, becoming an overnight sensation. Out of virtual anonymity, she launched herself onto the international stage. "Maria Mania" was born. Her success would last: she went on to hold the number-one WTA ranking multiple times, to win four more Grand Slam tournaments, and to become one of the highest-grossing female athletes...

The explosive story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and what it reveals about the growing clandestine conflict between the West and Russia. Salisbury, England: March 4, 2018: slumped on a bench, paralyzed and barely able to breathe, were a former Russian intelligence officer named Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Sergei had been living a quiet life in England since 2010, when he was expelled from Russia as part of...

"A cybersecurity expert and former FBI "ghost" tells the thrilling story of how he helped take down notorious FBI mole Robert Hanssen, the first Russian cyber spy. Eric O'Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI's top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets....