This book contains over 100 texts with exercises for beginners. These are texts of various genres and themes which were written especially for this book. Themes & genres include: literature, cultural texts, newspaper articles, fairy tales and anecdotes. The vocabulary and grammar material is according to the elementary level. Difficult vocabulary has been translated into English.
I actually enjoyed a lot of the stories in this book. They're silly and corny, but some of them are actually funny or interesting and provide some quirky details about Russian life. I didn't do all the exercises, but those also seem useful. Without the exercises it still provides some good reading practice.