Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak's epic novel follows the brilliant physician and poet Yuri Zhivago from the twilight of Tsarist Russia through the First World War, the Revolution, the Civil War, and into the chaos of Stalinist consolidation. Against this historical cataclysm, Zhivago loves two women: his wife Tonya, who represents the ordered world being destroyed around them, and Lara, the embodiment of Russia itself in its beauty and its suffering. Pasternak's Nobel Prize-winning novel was written at enormous personal risk and smuggled out of the Soviet Union for its first publication.

John Lee narrates this towering work with the scope and emotional depth its history demands, giving Pasternak's lyrical prose its full musicality while keeping the novel's vast chronological sweep navigable. His voice distinguishes the novel's large cast across decades of upheaval, and the love story between Zhivago and Lara carries the heartbreak that made the book an international sensation. At just under twenty-three hours, Doctor Zhivago is a major audio commitment that rewards it fully.