Books

 О языке-. A Comprehensive Russian Grammar.By: T. Wad. He describes Russian grammar in great detail.

Schaums Outline of Russian Grammar. By: James Levine. He describes the grammar and provides exercises in one volume. This is seventeen dollars well spent.

I like any dictionary by Oxford and the Smirnitski dictionary.

History and culture.
1) Culture Shock, Russia. By: Anna Pavloskaya. Good read about how Russia see themselves and the world. 2) Russia Under the Old Regime. By: Richard Pipes 3) Russia Under the Bolsheviks. By: Richard Pipes 4) Gulag. By Anne Applebaum. The title says it all. 5) A History of Russia. By : Rianovski. A one volume of history, written many years ago. A very good general overview of Russia history to the twentieth century. 6) Ivan's War. By: Catherine Merridale. Excellent read about the lot of the common Soviet soldier in World War II. 7) Moscow, 1941. By: Rodric Braithwaite. The outbreak of World War II in the Soviet Union. The author was the British ambassador to Russia. 8) The Russian's World. The life of Russians. Chapters on names, education and living in Russia and the Soviet Union. The book is worth the price, for the specific vocabulary provided. 9) The Forsaken. By: Tim Tzouliadis. Americans trapped in the Soviet Union. An excellent read about an unknown chapter in Soviet American history. 10) The Gulag Achipielego. By I. Solzhenitsyn. The history of Soviet labor camps from their inception until the 1960s. A must read for anyone interested in Russian history.