Cinema for Russian Conversation, Volume 1
Cinema for Russian Conversation by Mara Kashper, Olga Kagan, and Yuliya Morozova, is a brilliant conversation book for intermediate and advanced Russian language courses.  Previous books in this area lacked sufficient input for students; this book solves that problem by using precisely those films that teachers of Russian have already been using for years in their classrooms.  The films in Volume 1 include The Cranes Are Flying, Ivan Vasilievich Changes Jobs, The Irony of Fate, Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears, and Fall Marathon, among others.  The films in Volume 2 include Adam’s Rib, Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Thief, and East-West, among others. . . .The selection of films is beautiful:  these are many of the films we have been using in our Russian language classrooms already, but without substantial pedagogical support for doing so. Cinema for Russian Conversation provides just that support:  it is an outstanding contribution for the Russian language curriculum.  -- Benjamin Rifkin, Temple University