In response to:

Russia: The Citizen Poet from the November 8, 2012 issue

Can Romney Get a Majority? from the September 27, 2012 issue

In Andrew Hacker’s “Can Romney Get a Majority?” [NYR, September 27], eight Republican challengers have attempted to defeat incumbent Democratic presidents in the past century. The list should have included Alf Landon and Wendell Wilkie, who lost to FDR in 1936 and 1940, respectively.

In Rachel Polonsky’s review of Dmitry Bykov’s Living Souls [NYR, November 8], Bykov has published three biographies. In addition to those of Boris Pasternak and Bulat Okudzhava, published in 2005 and 2009, he also published a biography of Maxim Gorky in 2008. The next book by Allan Gurganus [Contributors, NYR, November 8] will be titled Falls Trilogy, not Local Souls.