"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."
This is a wonderful Barnes and Noble edition of Anna Karenina I bought for my wife. I love the look and feel of it, real quality. I will definitely add more of these Leatherbound Classics prints to the collection.
I took these on my last visit to Moscow, back in 2021, this is the Library room at restaurant Cafe Pushkin. It is my absolute favourite, the food is incredible. They have over 3,000 authentic period books on the shelves. The atmosphere there is fantastic, it’s incredibly easy to imagine yourself as a 19th-century gentleman, trying to find a great book to read.
It’s interesting to think about Pushkin and his legacy. He doesn't get anywhere near the same attention here in the UK as other Russian greats, but seeing how deeply he is respected in Russia is fantastic. I was surprised when I saw he has his own square! I can’t wait to go back there again one day.
Why do you think he’s not so well known, or widely read, outside of Russia? It feels like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are the default for most of us.
Hi all, I just wanted to share some exciting news with you all. When I first shared my daily quotes app you made two main suggestions. The first was releasing it on Android (which we did last month 🥳), the second was getting the quotes in their original Russian. I’ve finally done this, across both iOS and Android, along with a more precise source. This means you can now see the exact Cyrillic quote and the chapter a quote comes from. There’s been a lot of manual validation, and I leant on my wife a bit to help there, but it was definitely the right call, and has massively improved the app quality.
One more thing I added is the option to show your favourite quotes either in addition to, or instead of, the main daily quotes, just in case you have specific favourites that inspire you.
If anyone does give it a go, let me know how you get on! As always, all suggestions or comments are more than welcome. I will share the link below.
I’m not sure how many fans of classic literature we have here, but I know you all know your widgets and wanted to share mine. This is from Dead Souls Daily, an app I created that shares a daily quote from classic Russian literature.
I just released an update on the App Store today with improved widgets, so thought I’d ask for any opinions and feedback on the layout and typography.
What do you all think?
App Store link:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/dead-souls-daily/id6762573929
One player has started with “raise” 192 times so far, a classic Wordle opener, but since Tripix gives you the theme first, it’s not so successful here!
Does anyone here have a favourite word to kick off their games?
My game (Tripix) has been running since April now, and today I pulled some data to see which words people guess first. I thought it was interesting and worth a share with you all.
It turns out “Water” has been the most widely used starting point, followed by “Cloud”. I really thought “audio” or “adieu” were going to be up there! The top individual word is “Raise”, but that’s just from one player who started with it over 180 times.
The game is slightly different to Wordle, as there is a theme, meaning people usually try something different (as you can see. 3,047 different words have been used so far), but I’m curious what words you all use in your daily word games, do you have a favourite word? Please do share!
Hi all, a few weeks back I shared my new Russian Literature inspired app, Dead Souls Daily. I had some great feedback from you all (thank you!). It was iOS only at the time and a few of you were looking for an Android version, it has taken me a lot longer than I originally expected, but it’s finally here!
If anyone is interested then please have a look at the website for more information and to download:
https://deadsoulsdaily.com
Any feedback or comments much appreciated!
I found this on my book shelf at home recently. It’s a 1952 Goslitizdat edition of Gogol’s Dead Souls that my wife brought to the UK when she moved from Russia several years ago. I have been looking through it in wonder, imagining the people who bought and read this originally, all those years ago.
It contained this small paper bookmark, saving the page at the famous Troika passage. I thought I would share this with you all, as I know many here will appreciate seeing this. It’s amazing how old books can really get your mind going, imagining a world gone by.
As one of my wife’s favourite books, it actually inspired an app I created for her called Dead Souls Daily, which provides a quote from the Russian Classics every day. I like to think whoever picked this book up back in the 1950s would have been amazed, and approved!
Any thoughts on your favourite classic books, or nice old editions which inspire you, are more than welcome!
Hi all,
I wanted to share something with you that I’m hoping you just might enjoy.
A few years ago my wife moved away from Moscow, and one of the things she misses most is being surrounded by Russian culture and literature. This led to a small personal project for her, which has gradually evolved into an app called Dead Souls Daily.
The idea is simple: a daily quote from Russian literature, delivered through the app itself or directly to your home and lock screens via widgets.
What I thought would be a straightforward project ended up becoming surprisingly complex. Authenticating quotations was often more difficult than building the software. The same quote would appear attributed to different authors, translations varied significantly, and occasionally the same phrase would appear in multiple works. I spent a great deal of time comparing editions, translations, and sources in an effort to make the collection as reliable as possible.
The app is free to use, contains no advertising, and includes quotes from many of the major Russian literary classics. There are also themed selections for particular days and occasions, which has become one of my favourite aspects of the project.
The iOS version is already live, and the Android version should be released in about four days once testing is complete. If anyone here would be interested in joining the Android test group, I’d be very grateful.
I suspect this subreddit contains exactly the people who will notice mistakes, challenge attributions, suggest better translations, and generally tell me what works and what doesn’t. That’s precisely the sort of feedback I’m looking for.
If you’d like to take a look, I’d genuinely welcome any feedback; positive, critical, or otherwise.
For more information:
https://deadsoulsdaily.com
Hi all,
I’m looking to get testers for my new Literature Daily Quote App over the next couple of weeks. It’s called Dead Souls Daily. Any feedback would be hugely appreciated and of course I’ll return the favour in testing your apps and games too!
Step 1: Click this link and hit 'Join Group' so Google authorizes your account (note I re-used a group from an earlier app so my friends and family could still access, this is the right group though!):
https://groups.google.com/g/tripixdaily/
Step 2: Once you've joined, click this second link to officially become a tester and download the game:
On Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.knealon.deadsoulsdaily
On Web:
https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.knealon.deadsoulsdaily
Note: It’s a very simple app, one quote, once a day! There is an extensive, searchable, quote archive which is behind a paywall. If you message me here I can give you a play store promo code to unlock and test this part of the app.
Hey r/iOSGaming,
Happy Self-Promotion Saturday!
I recently launched my first proper mobile game, Tripix: Daily Word Puzzle, and I would absolutely love to get this community's honest feedback.
What is it?
It takes the colour-coded guessing mechanics we all know, but adds a thematic twist. Instead of hunting for one completely random dictionary word, you are given a daily theme (like "Seaside", "Space", or "Baking")and have to work out three specific 5-letter words that fit that category.
Why I built it:
I love daily puzzles, but I always found it slightly frustrating when the answer of the day was an obscure, isolated word with zero context. I wanted a game where the solving process felt logical and connected. If the theme is "Woodland", guessing "PINES" or "SHRUB" actually makes sense. Also, I really wanted something ad-free with no annoying pop ups or banners.
A few quick details:
There is a main Daily Challenge and an unlockable Bonus Challenge every day.
- I built this entirely solo using React Native and Expo.
- It is completely free to download and play the daily loop.
- It is pronounced Trip-ix, with a short 'i' like in 'it'
App Store Link:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tripix-daily-word-puzzle/id6761073146
Website:
https://tripixdaily.com
I am actively working on an update right now which will introduce an Archive feature, so you can play missed days and keep the fu going when you age more time.
I’d really appreciate any honest feedback, bug reports, or feature requests you have. Any support would be amazing.
Thanks for taking a look!