Nominated for the New York Book Critics Circle Award, this is an uneven set of loosely related essays by a Turkish-American, Harvard and Stanford educated young woman.  Batuman, a staff writer for the New Yorker and originally published in n+1, studied Russian literature as a grad student and decided to visit the sites of many of Russia’s great writers’ efforts.  A visit to Florence where Dostoyevsky wrote the Idiot and Demons (also known at Possessed), a long summer in Samarkand where Uzbek poetry and language was a long, boring interlude, a visit to Tolstoy’s Yosnaya Polyana estate for a conference, a visit to St. Petersburg to see a reconstruction of Tsar Peter I’s niece Anna, empress at 37 years of age, etc.  Some very funny parts, but too many dull ones.  I’d give this a pass unless you’re a Russian lit lover.