Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age [Paperback]

With the writers of the golden age as her guides—Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Turgenev, among others—Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Bypassing major cities as much as possible, she goes instead to the places associated with the country’s literary masters. Wheeler weaves these writers’ lives and works around their historical homes, giving us rich portraits of the many diverse Russias from which these writers spoke.

Illustrated with both historical images and contemporary snapshots of the people and places that shaped her journey, Mud and Stars gives us timely, witty, and deeply personal insights into Russia, then and now.

One of Smithsonian’s Ten Best Travel Books of the Year“A personal glimpse into a populace whose lives are often overshadowed by the politics of the day.” 
—Jennifer Nalewicki, Smithsonian, “The Ten Best Books About Travel of 2019”

“Sara Wheeler’s travel books are insightful accounts of intrepid journeys . . . There are wry observations, astute close-readings, scathing critiques of Putin’s misrule, and numerous impressions on Russian quirks and foibles. Gilding the whole proceedings is Wheeler’s lyrical prose . . . We come away from this enthralling book wiser and happier—and with a pang or two of wanderlust.”
—Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Sara Wheeler is a canny, first-class travel writer . . . [who] time travels back and forth from lã+