Maxim Gorky, pseudonym of Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, Soviet novelist, playwright and essayist, who was a founder of social realism. Although known principally as a writer, he was closely associated with the tumultuous revolutionary period of his own country. The Mother, one of his best-known works, is the story of the radicalization of an uneducated woman that was later taken as a model for the Socialist Realist novel, and his autobiographical masterpiece Childhood.

    Adored by Urbenin, the estate manager, whom she marries to escape the poverty of her home. She is also desired by the dissolute Count Karneyev and by Zinovyev, a magistrate, who knows the secret misery of her marriage. When an attempt is made on Olga's life in the woods, it seems impossible to discover the perpetrator in an impenetrable web of lust, deceit, loathing and double-dealing. One of Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction combines the classic elements of a gripping mystery with a short story of corruption, concealed love and fatal jealousy.Ronald Wilks's brilliant new translation of this work is the first in over seventy years. It brilliantly captures the immediacy of the dialogue that Chekhov was later to develop into his great dramas. This edition also includes an introduction by John Sutherland, suggestions for further reading and explanatory notes.Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. In 1879 he travelled to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years, he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886, and a year later his second volume In the Twilight, for which he received the Pushkin Prize. Today his plays, including 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Seagull', and 'The Cherry Orchard' are recognised as masterpieces the world over.If you enjoyed The Shooting Party, you might like Chekhov's Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.

    Mary Shaw’s the doting mother, showering her children with gifts from the heart and the pocketbook.The Shaws have survived divorce and death, but something sinister is in their midst. The truth threatens to tear them apart. The lies threaten to tear them apart.Which side will each choose?Adult language and explicit content.

    Instead, they are attending their father's funeral -- and their mother's trial for his murder...With more than three million copies of her novels sold, Eileen Goudge is already renowned for her rich, compelling sagas of women's lives. Now, with One Last Dance, she reaches a new level of drama, suspense, and passion -- and new heights of bestsellerdom!

    The main story is simple: released after thirty years in the Soviet camps, Ivan Grigoryevich must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan’s story is only one among many. Thus we also hear about Ivan’s cousin, Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, and Pinegin, the informer who got Ivan sent to the camps.Then a brilliant short play interrupts the narrative: a series of informers steps forward, each making excuses for the inexcusable things that he did—inexcusable and yet, the informers plead, in Stalinist Russia understandable, almost unavoidable.And at the core of the book, we find the story of Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan’s lover, who tells about her eager involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932–33, which led to the deaths of three to five million Ukrainian peasants. Here Everything Flows attains an unbearable lucidity comparable to the last cantos of Dante’s Inferno.

    Having solved the mystery of the child serial killings outside Paris, Elise has become sort of a minor celebrity, selling the rights to her story to a mystery writer named Brigitte Aubert.

    Her idea blossomed into this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning within the stories of her ancestors.In a series of short meditations, Petrowskaja delves into family legends, introducing a remarkable cast of characters: Judas Stern, her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomatic attaché in 1932 and was sentenced to death; her grandfather Semyon, who went underground with a new name during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, forever splitting their branch of the family from the rest; her grandmother Rosa, who ran an orphanage in the Urals for deaf-mute Jewish children; her Ukrainian grandfather Vasily, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared without explanation forty-one years later—and settled back into the family as if he’d never been gone; and her great-grandmother, whose name may have been Esther, who alone remained in Kiev and was killed by the Nazis.How do you talk about what you can’t know, how do you bring the past to life? To answer this complex question, Petrowskaja visits the scenes of these events, reflecting on a fragmented and traumatized century and bringing to light family figures who threaten to drift into obscurity. A true search for the past reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, Maybe Esther is a poignant, haunting investigation of the effects of history on one family.

    Former Bolshoi ballerina Nina Revskaya auctions off her jewelry collection and becomes overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, the friends she left behind amidst Stalinist aggression, and the dark secret that brought her to a new life in Boston.

    On a remote, dusty road forty miles outside of Austin, Texas, FBI agent Joe Grant and a confidential informant are killed in a deadly shootout. Left to pick up the pieces is Mary Grant, Joe's young wife and mother of their two daughters. The official report places blame for the deaths on Joe's shoulders . . . but the story just doesn't add up and Mary has too many troubling questions that need answers. How did Joe's final voice mail—containing a cryptic warning for Mary, recorded moments before the fatal shooting—disappear without a trace from her phone?         Stonewalled by the FBI, Mary will be drawn into a deadly conspiracy that puts her in the crosshairs of the richest and most powerful men in America . . . and the newest and most terrifying surveillance system known to man.New York Times bestselling author Christopher Reich is the master of crafting thrillers of the highest caliber, with nonstop action and nail-biting suspense. Invasion of Privacy is his richest, most relevant novel to date and will have readers hooked from the first page to the last. Your privacy is for sale.

    Kate Blunt will do anything for her son, Jasper. Well, almost anything.  Since Jasper has the incurable lung disease cystic fibrosis, Kate’s always told him he couldn’t get a dog, It’s a tough call, but she’s a single mom taking care of a kid who has to fight for every breath he takes. The daily medical routine that keeps Jasper alive is complicated enough without adding a mutt to the mix. Worse still, as the veterinarian in charge of a Cape Cod animal shelter, Kate’s life is wall-to-wall mutts in constant need of forever homes.Kate must live with the fact that every abandoned dog is on a two-week deadline to find a human – and the scarred, mistreated wreck that turns up doesn’t stand a chance. Named Whistler, he’s too old, too ugly. But the dog forms an instantaneous, almost magical connection with Jasper. The dog never makes a sound, let alone a bark, yet he speaks to Jasper in a myriad of mysterious ways, forging an indelible bond with the boy. The clock’s ticking, the dog’s future hangs in the balance, and Jasper would do anything to find him a home; but Whistler has chosen them -- for a reason.And what Whistler inspires in Kate and Jasper may be his most important lesson of all.

    Reminiscent of the works of Carol Shields, this quirky, humorous, beautifully told novel breathes new life into the age-old conundrum that is love.

    Then one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost film by silent comedian Hector Mann. His interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight back in 1929.When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer’s mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico inviting him to meet Hector. Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever.

    Most people struggle to get by; Frank takes it easy in his mother's whorehouse, which caters to members of the occupying forces. But Frank is restless. He is a pimp, a thug, a petty thief, and, as Dirty Snow opens, he has just killed his first man. Through the unrelenting darkness and cold of an endless winter, Frank will pursue abjection until finally there is nowhere to go.Hans Koning has described Dirty Snow as "one of the very few novels to come out of German-occupied France that gets it exactly right." In a study of the criminal mind that is comparable to Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, Simenon maps a no man's land of the spirit in which human nature is driven to destruction—and redemption, perhaps, as well—by forces beyond its control.

    Heartsnatcher is Boris Vian's most playful and most serious work. The main character is Clementine, a mother who punishes her husband for causing her the excruciating pain of giving birth to three babies. As they age, she becomes increasingly obsessed with protecting them, going so far as to build an invisible wall around their property.

    Lindy, the wild one, left home, carved out a new life in the city and never looked back. Delia, the sister who stayed, became a mother herself, raising her daughters and running the family shop in their small Pennsylvania hometown on the shores of Lake Erie.But now, with their mother's ailing health and a rebellious teenager to rein in, Delia has no choice but to welcome Lindy home. As the two sisters try to put their family back in order, they finally have the chance to reclaim what's been lost over the years: for Delia, professional dreams and a happy marriage, and for Lindy, a sense of home and an old flame--and best of all, each other. But when one turbulent night leads to a shocking revelation, the women must face the past they've avoided for a decade. And there's nothing like an old secret to bring the McAvoy women back together and stronger than ever.With warm affection and wry wit, Molly Fader's The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets is about the ties that bind family and the power of secrets to hold us back or set us free.