This satirical novel tells the story of the surgical transformation of a dog into a man, and is an obvious criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution.

    It is set in Kiev during the Russian revolution and tells the story of the Turbin family and the war's effect on the middle-classes (not workers). The story was not seen as politically correct, and thereby contributed to Bulgakov's lifelong troubles with the Soviet authorities. It was, however, a well-loved book, and the novel was turned into a successful play at the time of its publication in 1967.

    In it we meet Olav Audunsson and Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, who were betrothed as children and raised as brother and sister. Now, in the heedlessness of youth, they become lovers, unaware that their ardor will forge the first link in a chain of murder, exile, and disgrace.Soaringly romantic and psychologically nuanced, Undset's novel is also a meticulous re-creation of a world split between pagan codes of retribution and the rigors of Christian piety--a world where law is a fragile new invention and manslaughter is so common that it's punishable by fine.

    First published in Norway as two books in 1924 and 1925, the author collaborated with Minnesotan Lincoln Colcord on the English translation.The novel follows a Norwegian family's struggles as they try to make a new life as pioneers in the Dakota territory. Rølvaag is interested in psychology and the human cost of empire building, at a time when other writers focused on the glamor and romance of the West. The book reflects his personal experiences as a settler as well as the immigrant homesteader experience of his wife’s family. Both the grim realities of pioneering and the gloomy fatalism of the Norse mind are captured in depictions of snow storms, locusts, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, the difficulty of fitting into a new culture, and the estrangement of immigrant children who grow up in a new land. It is a novel at once palpably European and distinctly American.Giants in the Earth was turned into an opera by Douglas Moore and Arnold Sundgaard; it won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1951.

    The inhumanity of caste hierarchies and the plight of women stirred his indignation and remained constant themes throughout his works. Of his many novels, Rangbhumi depicts most graphically the devastation of peasant society and agriculture under colonial rule.

    

    Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

    Terhune wrote books about dogs in the 1920s and '30s, and through his books he created a spark of love for dogs in general and for Collies in particular. Terhune also wrote lovingly of Sunnybank, the estate he shared with his wife and with Lad, Bruce, Grey Dawn, and all the other Collies he raised and trained. Contents: His Off-Day; His Friends; Trapped; The Kidnapers; Portia and a Bone; The Mystery-Show; and The Last Adventure. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

    It is a hybrid of love story, tragedy, and farce, with a protagonist who sweet-talks teaspoons, flirts with important politicians, plays maidservant to young boys, and uses a passerby’s mouth as an ashtray. Walser’s novel spoofs the stiff-upper-lipped European petit bourgeois and its nervous reactions to whatever threatens the stability of its worldview.

    Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.The Painted Veil is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.

    On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, 'An American Tragedy' stands as Theodore Dreiser's supreme achievement.Based on an actual criminal case, 'An American Tragedy' was the inspiration for the film 'A Place in the Sun', which won six Academy Awards and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff.

    Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story is of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his new love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.(back cover)

    Though originally denounced as pornographic, Kvachi's tale is one of the great classics of twentieth-century Georgian literature -- and a hilarious romp to boot.

    To give a decent representative quote: "Our theory of the origin of life is that there is no origin, but only a constant development and change of form." He mixes this in with discussions of endothermic and exothermic movements of matter in relation to animate matter (humans) and inanimate matter (food), into and out of the body, in way that seems to foreshadow the concept of free energy coupling developed in the 1920s through the 1940s, all in relation to chemical experiments and findings, such as the Haber process.

    Her mother is in Canada with relatives, Val is boarding one Mrs Wilby, an unpleasant old schoolfriend of her mother's, and the other new girl in the Fifth is so spoilt that she creates difficulties for everyone. This is the first book in the Myra Dakin pair.

    In 1925, Scott, an English man of letters, one-time librarian and secretary to Bernard Berenson and author of The Architecture of Humanism, published this biography of Isabelle de Charriere, who wrote using the pen name Zélide. Born Isabella van Serooskerken van Tuyll in 1740, the Dutch girl earned early recognition around Europe for her precocious intellect. She had a dozen or so suitors, including the impossibly egotistical Boswell, but her uncompromising, somewhat perverse devotion to ratiocination led her to marry her brothers' lackluster tutor. Her most renowned relationship, however, took place some 15 years later, when she met Benjamin Constant, a man 27 years her junior. That eight-year relationship informs the bulk of the book and for Scott, the story of Zélide and Benjamin and Madame de Stael, the woman he left her for, is nothing less than Europe's renunciation of reason and the Enlightenment for sensibility and Romanticism.