I've just finished reading The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf & Yevgeny Petrov, and while this novel was not recommended by the podcast, I would not have read this book had it not been for the podcast. The music at the beginning of each podcast episode comes from the 1970 film adaptation of the novel by Mel Brooks. Hearing the music five days a week, it was only a matter of time before I searched for and downloaded the book.
The novel has been adapted several times - there's even an unfinished operetta based on the novel by Dmitri Shostakovich. According to wikipedia, Brooks' version follows the novel more closely than most of the other adaptations, but even Brooks wanders from the original story. The book is humorous, although not nearly as slapstick as Brooks' film.
In both, the main character is Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, an impoverished aristocrat from the days of Tsarist Russia who now lives in the Soviet Union of 1927. At the death of his mother-in-law, Vorobyaninov learns that she had hidden a fortune in jewels in the seat cushion of one of the twelve chairs that made up a dining room set owned by her family prior to the Russian revolution. The book tells of Vorobyaninov's quest to find the chair that holds the jewels.
Another big difference in the book and Brooks' film is the ending. I'm not going to give spoilers, but I'll say that Ilf & Petrov's original ending would probably follow the Stalinist censors views better than Mel Brooks' ending.
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