On her blog, Josefina is hosting a “read-a-long” of a Russian novel this summer, and the book chosen is «Мастер и Маргарита» [“The Master & Margarita”]!
For help finding the book in Russian, you can look on Ebay or http://www.kniga.com/, which has a huge selection of books in Russian, and they ship from New York, so the postage is very reasonable. They also have eBooks. Doctor Zhivago is available as in eBook for $1.51, though it is also to be found for free on other internet sources, since it is in the public domain. But you can find some amazing deals there on other eBooks. Master & Margarita is there to be found in paperback for $7.95. I do have an electronic version on my iPad, but of course there is nothing like reading from a real book.
Here’s something to get you a “leg up” to get started. It is a PDF of the first two chapters of “The Master & Margarita” with English and Russian side-by-side (or “side-by-each” as they say in French Canadian influenced Woonsocket, Rhode Island).
I’m going to try and upload the movie series as well, which of course is very helpful and fun to watch to accompany the reading.
I encourage all my readers to read along with Josefina and the group!
There is a lot of online libraries with free access, where you can find a lot of classic literature.
If you want to read something more contemporary try reading blogs. The most popular host for blogs in Russia is livejournal.com I highly recommend to read lj-user pesen_net He has very vivid language and very hilarious stories.
If you want to know more about russian slang used on the internet try to read http://lurkmore.ru/ It is the encyclopedia just like wiki.
And finally, if you have questions any in Russian write me (dsolomennikova@gmail.com). I will be happy to help :)
Меня зовут Даша и я живу в Канаде, в Торонто. Пишите :)
I forgot the links to the libraries http://www.lib.ru/ and
http://www.flibusta.net/
[…] The Master and Margarita, my favorite book of all time, in the original Russian. Through the blog Learning Russian, I stumbled across this post over at Transparent Language’s Russian Blog. Josefina, one of […]