A.D. Miller Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

A.D. Miller is a literary fiction author from London who is best known for his debut novel “Snowdrops.”

The author was born in 1974 in London and always knew he wanted to write even as a child. As an adolescent, he used to pen a lot of poetry, bad plays, and even worse short stories when he was in his twenties.
He wrote “The Earl of Petticoat Lane, a family memoir as his first work that was all about immigration and class in 2006. It was after that that he got the courage to begin writing a novel.
In his earlier years, he went to Princeton and Cambridge where he studied literature and embarked on his career as a journalist, penning travel pieces about the United States.

Upon his return to the UK, he worked as a producer on TV before he joined The Economist, where he was all about writing about British culture and politics.

In 2004, he was promoted to Moscow correspondent and traveled widely across the former Soviet Union and Russia.

He is currently the British editor of The Economist and makes his home in London, where he lives with Emma his wife, Milly his daughter, and Jacob his son.
“Snowdrops,” his first fiction novel made the shortlist for the 2011 Booker Prize.

Ever since A.D. Miller became a journalist for “The Economist” in 2000, many doors opened for him as he has gone on to become Culture Editor, Correspondent in the American South, and Bagehot columnist.

Ever since 2021, Miller has been the author of The Economist’s biweekly column on culture titled Backstory. He has also been a contributor to The Spectator, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the Observer, and the Guardian.
He has been a three-time nominated journalist for the David Watt Prize reporting from Russia. In 2014, he was the FPA Media Award winner of the Travel Story of the Year about how he spent 24 hours at a motorway service station.
Miller has also been a Pushkin House Russian Book Prize and Wingate Prize judge in addition to writing introductions to novellas by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He is also a Human Dignity Trust trustee.

A.D. Miller was working in Russia as a foreign correspondent when he first had the idea for his debut novel “Snowdrops.” Working as a foreign correspondent, he penned an article about how snow had such a significant role in life in Moscow.
It was then that he came across the concept of “the Snowdrop.” This was the Russian street language for a body that emerged in the thaw after it had been buried in the snow for several months.

He thought the image was excellent at capturing how life could be harsh for some people in Russia, but also thought it could work as a metaphor for other creative ideas too.

An important metaphor was how aspects of personality and experiences that one tries to suppress may catch up with them.

As a novice fiction author, some of his most influential inspirations include the nasty psychology of Nikolai Gogol, particularly how he writes about the Russian winter as a symbolic and physical phenomenon in “The Overcoat.”
He also finds a lot of inspiration from the journalist turned-fiction author Babel.

A.D. Miller’s work “Snowdrops” juxtaposes how in Moscow, snowdrops do not herald the arrival of spring but rather the revealing of bodies buried in the snow that are unearthed with the coming thaw.

Nick the lead is a British lawyer in his thirties who discovers that morals too just like bodies can be buried. We follow him and peel back the Russian capital’s glamourous veneer to expose the seedy, ingrained, and casual violence lying beneath.
It can be easy to forget how mystical Moscow seemed to Westerners during the 1990s. Following the end of the Soviet Union and the free-for-all that resulted from that, lawyers and foreign investors flocked to Russia.

The mineral wealth of the defunct empire was ripe for the picking and there were all manner of ambitious and ruthless would-be oligarchs and ambitious Anglo-American advisors rush in to abet and help in the plunder.

Since Nick speaks Russian and has been in the Russian capital for several winters, he believes he is one of them. But he soon realizes that despite appearances, Russians could not be any more different.

“The Faithful Couple” by A.D. Miller is an excellent account of a friendship that changes over several years. It recounts how two young men met on holiday, resulting in a long-lasting friendship.

The two young men engage with each other based on family values, life experience, and education, which set the tone for how they relate with each other.

Nonetheless, they tend to be combative, particularly around a young woman whose attention they both crave. The experience is symbolically captured in “The Faithful Couple” – a photo of them standing in front of co-joined trees.

The work comes with a range of characters living in the changing English capital over almost two decades. Miller presents universal realities, even though he writes about some very individual experiences.

It is a great tale of two young men and their ups and downs particularly as their responsibilities alter and roles change. With parenthood memories of their time in the United States, there is a feeling that their lives may be cursed despite their friendship.
Still, you cannot help but empathize with their family commitments and their situations.

A.D. Miller’s novel “Independence Square” is a work set in Ukraine in 2004 where post-Soviet Ukraine is going through “The Orange Revolution.”

Political protests rock Kyiv’s “Independence Square” following the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko by the Russian state.

The citizens are clamoring for real democratic elections to get in office representatives that will move the country forward, even as Russia is about eliminating political opponents.

It is an insightful and intelligent showcase of shifting political power and the zeitgeist of the time. Deputy head of mission and senior British diplomat Simon Davey is busy influencing voters into electing a candidate who will look toward the West.
While working with the protesters, he met Olesya Zarchenko whom he believes may have had a hand in his sacking. The story then moves to 2017 in London where Simon is at a low point, working low-paid menial jobs and steeped in misery.
But then he sees Olesya and is determined to get answers on what happened all those years past.

This is a fiction meets fact, political v personal novel that is a complex, multi-layered, and timely read.