The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

This was one of the best books I have ever read. It was also one of the first short stories I have read. It begins as told by some acquaintances of Ivan Ilych, reading about the news of his death. They all have the same thought: At least it's him and not me. It then moves on to the dead man's life, and finally to his thoughts in his last days. These were incredibly touching. It seems he lived his life contentedly, but as he dies he thinks of it all as going downhill from the bright days of childhood. Death is imminent and he is miserable, but on his last day, he finds what he had never seen before.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment was the first book I have read by Dostoevsky. It is the story of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a Russian student, who murders an old woman in the name of a theory he has formulated after the 'superior man' theories of Georg Wilhelm Frederich Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche. This happens in Part One, and through the rest of the book, Raskolnikov is tormented by guilt. He seems to switch back and forth between sanity and insanity, raving mad at moments and becoming a selfless philanthropist at others. 
This was a very good book on the whole, quite cerebral.

August 1914 by Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn

August 1914, as the author says in the beginning, '. . . comprises only the first part, or fascicle, of of a work in many parts. Therefore, it makes no pretense at completeness, even in the development of its characters: except for the operations of Samsonov's army, this is only the initial presentation of a larger work. The whole work, however, may take as long as twenty years, and probably I will not live to finish it. Given the difficulty of retelling history, I need, as the work progresses, the cooperation of readers who still remember the period. That is why I have decided to publish in fascicles, or a series of volumes'. This proves to be true, as it leaves several loose ends with characters and subplots, and I'm not quite sure what book comes next; it may be November 1916.

This book centres on the campaign of the Second Army, in the area of Tannenberg, Prussia, during, as the title indicates, August 1914. The Second Army is led by General Samsonov, a rather pathetic, plodding character from which reality is withheld by those below him in rank. A few characters are introduced near the beginning of the book who have nothing to do with the army, but are mostly peasants on the steppes. These are the loose ends of the book, seemingly forgotten throughout and reintroduced in the last few chapters. 

An officer from General Headquarters is sent to Second Army to assess the situation, a certain Colonel Vorotyntsev, who ties most of the very segregated subplots together. He is young and uncorrupted by rank and achievements, and belongs to a very small group of characters that can actually be related to. 

The campaign is quite complex and would take a more lengthy explanation than I can give, but Solzhenitsyn does it quite clearly, though it takes 622 pages, making August 1914 the second-longest book I have ever read, bested in length only by War and Peace. It is also one of the best I have ever read.

I will also note that my edition had a map of the area of Tannenberg as an insert, without which the plot would have been entirely lost to me. 

The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford

Don't get deterred by the name; this actually isn't a novel. It was written by a woman who was the governess for seventeen years to the two princesses of England, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, the former of which is now Queen Elizabeth II. What apparently happened was Marion Crawford didn't get permission to divulge this information and I think they sued her. What I do know is that the royal family refused to have anything more to do with her, even though she was like a mother to the princesses, and didn't even send her family a wreath when she died.
The book itself was written by a ghost writer, but it was an amazing book. I got it for my birthday and read it all in one day. This might have been because Queen Elizabeth II is, to me, a fascinating person, but I think anyone would like it. It includes pictures of the little princesses through the years and has detailed accounts of their personalities. I believe it's out-of-print now, but there are many ways of acquiring it. Definitely a book to be read over and over again.

Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door by Lynne Truss

I finished this book yesterday morning. It was extremely good, but not quite as good as Eats, Shoots and Leaves by the same author. Maybe because of the subject matter. This book was about how the public has gotten ruder as the years have passed, and how everyone now walks around in their own little bubble and don't pay attention to anybody else. It was quite clever, like her other books, but had less of the little sarcasms and more of her thoughts on the matter, which were interesting. I suppose I'm not as glowing about this one as her other book, but it was quite interesting and it was all very true.

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Written in 1855, The Song of Hiawatha is an epic poem about an Indian named Hiawatha who is a great warrior and about his love for Minnehaha. I read it some time ago, and it was quite good. The meter of the poem was magnificent; I love trochaic tetrameter. There wasn't much of a plot that I can remember. It's amazing how a book in poem can be so interesting. I thought it would be a hard read, and in fact, it was rather easy. Hiawatha was immortalized, of course, being less of a character than a hero, but you liked him immensely, anyway. I'd never read an epic poem and this was extremely good. 

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

This was an excellent book. The hero, David Balfour, is a Lowland Scottish lad whose father died and is being cared for by a Campbell priest, who he very much respects. He sets off in the world to find his uncle who lives at the House of Shores (I'm not sure that I spelled that right). When he asks questions about directions, people give him strange looks and act like he's crazy; when he finally knocks on the door of his uncle's mansion -- in the middle of the night -- his uncle appears out of the window and tells him he has a gun and asks gruffly what he wants. David tells him who he is and is invited in. He's surprised that someone who inherited such great fortune lives so poorly. His uncle tells him that his share of the family fortune is at the top of an old tower, and David goes up the stairs in the middle of the night to find the chest of money. He gropes his way up the steps until, when lightning lights up the stairway, he realizes that he has been tricked and the stairs are not finished. If he had not seen that they were unfinished, he would have fallen to his death. He dashes back down and accuses his uncle, who acts innocent all the way through. The next day, his uncle tells him that he's got business down at the shore and that he should come with him. David complies, and is introduced to the captain of a ship. They go aboard, as the captain is apparently his uncle's old friend, and the uncle, unbeknown to David, leaves in a rowboat. He is kidnapped.
The rest of the events of this book are many and quite exciting. They all speak in faint brogue, which is a bit hard to read at first, but you get used to it. David is a wonderful character who is very normal, which is always good for a book, in my opinion. It has a sequel called David Balfour: Part Two, which I started and didn't like because it's all about some girl he starts following around.
Anyway, it was a great book and I hope to read it again someday.