Двенадцать стульев (1938)

The Twelve Chairs, from 1928, is a treasure hunt through the early Soviet Union: a set of dining chairs has been scattered across the country, and one of them hides a fortune in jewels. The hunt is led by Ostap Bender, the smooth-talking "great schemer," who became one of Russian literature's most beloved con men. Ilf and Petrov wrote it as a satire of the new bureaucracy, and a little background on communal apartments and state offices makes the jokes sharper. Anne O. Fisher's 2011 translation is the one to get: it won the Northern California Book Award for fiction in translation and comes with useful notes. Her version of the sequel, The Little Golden Calf, follows Bender further.