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Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
- Author
- Peter Pomerantsev
- Narrator
- John Curless
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Publish Date
- 17 February 2026
- Run Time
- 10 hours 24 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia, where even dictatorship is a reality show.
“A gripping and unsettling account.” —Washington Post
Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet masters, Hells Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors: welcome to twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality.
When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He meets with propaganda gurus running the nerve center of the Russian media machine, explores Siberian mafia towns, and visits the salons of the international, super-rich oligarchs. As his experience takes him ever deeper into the maze of Putin’s Russia, Pomerantsev begins to see the country with new eyes.
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is a piercingly insightful voyage into a country spinning from decadence into madness.
Critics Review
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Shortlisted for the 2015 Guardian First Book Award
Longlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize
An Amazon.com Best Book of the Month, November 2014 -
"Captivating...keen observations."—New York Times Book Review
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"Sparkling collection of essays."
—Wall Street Journal -
"This is a gripping and unsettling account of life in grim post-Soviet Russia."—Washington Post
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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"A scintillating take on a twisted reality."—Prospect Magazine
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"A patchwork tapestry that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief."—The Guardian
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"Everything you know about Russia is wrong, according to this eye-opening, mind-bending memoir of a TV producer caught between two cultures... the stylish rendering of the Russian culture, which both attracts and appalls the author, will keep the reader captivated."—Kirkus, Starred Review
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"Sometimes horrifying but always compelling, this book exposes the bizarre reality hiding beneath the facade of a 'youthful, bouncy, glossy country.'"—Publishers Weekly
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"It is hard to think of another work that better describes today's Russia; Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible may very well be the defining book about the Putin era. This might seem like excessive praise for a relatively short, non-academic memoir by a reality-TV producer now living in London, but it is justified by the author's gimlet eye and reportorial skill."—Commentary Magazine
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"A brilliant, entertaining, and ultimately tragic book about not only Russia, but the West."—Tablet Magazine
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"Enthralling... his exquisite rendering of mind-control techniques is chilling."—Times Literary Supplement
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"Brilliant collection of sketches...powerful, moving and sometimes hilarious."—Washington Times
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"Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written."—New Statesman [UK]
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"[A] tale of descending into and eventually emerging from Moscow's hallucinogenic reality."—Foreign Affairs
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"[A] riveting, urgent book ... Pomerantsev is one of the most perceptive, imaginative and entertaining commentators writing on Russia today and, much like the country itself, his first book is seductive and terrifying in equal measure."—The Times (UK)
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"This is the strangest book of note I have ever read... a dark and grotesque comedy of manners... His reporter's straightforward and unlimited curiosity, his willingness to plow and harrow the widest fields for facts, and his exacting descriptive details give him credibility. Plus, what he tells us is so incredible."
—P.J. O'Rourke, World Affairs Magazine -
"A riveting portrait of the new Russia with all its corruption, willful power and spasms of unforgettable, poetic glamor. I couldn't put it down."—Tina Brown
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"Peter Pomeranzev, one of the most brilliant observers of Putin's Russia, describes a country obsessed with illusion and glamor, but with a dangerous, amoral core beneath the surface. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is an electrifying, terrifying book."—Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
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Details
- Author
- Peter Pomerantsev
- Narrator
- John Curless
- Duration
- 10 hours 24 minutes
- Release Date
- 17 February 2026
- ISBN
- 9781668656303
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Genre
- Politics and government, Popular culture, Far-right political ideologies and movements, Political control and freedoms
Synopsis
A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia, where even dictatorship is a reality show.“A gripping and unsettling account.” —Washington Post Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet masters, Hells Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors: welcome to twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality. When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He meets with propaganda gurus running the nerve center of the Russian media machine, explores Siberian mafia towns, and visits the salons of the international, super-rich oligarchs. As his experience takes him ever deeper into the maze of Putin’s Russia, Pomerantsev begins to see the country with new eyes.Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is a piercingly insightful voyage into a country spinning from decadence into madness.
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