Norton Dodge visited the apartments of unofficial artists in at least a dozen geographically scattered cities. By 1977, he had a thousand works of art. His ultimate window of interest involved the years from 1956 to 1986, and through his established contacts he eventually acquired another eight thousand works—by far the largest collection of its kind.John McPhee investigates Dodge's clandestine activities in the service of dissident Soviet art, his motives for his work, and the fates of several of the artists whose lives he touched. The Ransom of Russian Art is a suspenseful, chilling, and fascinating report on a covert operation like no other. It offers unprecedented insight into Soviet culture at the brink of the Union's collapse.

    To Stalin, he was such a threat that he warranted murder by pickax. This polarizing figure set up a world conflict that lasted through the twentieth century, and in Trotsky: A Graphic Biography, the renowned comic artist Rick Geary uses his distinct style to depict the stark reality of the man and his times. Trotsky's life becomes a guide to the creation of the Soviet Union, the horrors of World War I, and the establishment of international communism as he, Lenin, and their fellow Bolsheviks rise from persecution and a life underground to the height of political power. Ranging from his boyhood in the Ukraine to his fallout with Stalin and his moonlight romance with Frida Kahlo, Trotsky is a stunning look at one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers and the far-reaching political trends that he launched.

    Here, collected for the first time, are his famous lectures, which include Mansfield Park, Bleak House, and Ulysses. Edited and with a Foreword by Fredson Bowers; Introduction by John Updike; illustrations.

    The dogs are the comfortable, assimilated rich Jews up on the hill, while the wolves, their distant cousins, struggle below in the ghetto. Ada grows up motherless, looked after first by her father, then by an indomitable, social-climbing aunt, and eventually moves to Paris with her aunt's family, all of them looking for a brighter future. Ada makes a living in Paris as an artist, painting scenes from the world she has left behind. Her cousin Ben, intense and ferociously intelligent, has loved her for years; they share memories - together they survived the terrible pogroms of their childhood - and he presses her to marry him. But Harry Sinner is also in Paris, moving in exclusive circles, and infatuated with the daughter of a wealthy gentile banker. One day he buys two paintings which remind him of his past... and the course of Ada's life changes once more.But as recession and revolutions shake previously rich regimes, even a solid international bank can find itself over-extended and vulnerable to greed. Ben, now working for the Sinner family bank in Paris, is well-placed to take the kind of risks he could only dream of in the past. And as summer draws to a close, Ada's world is disintegrating and she is faced with a fateful decision.The Dogs and the Wolves, painted on a broad, vibrant canvas, with Némirovsky's acute eye for small cruelties and everyday sacrifice, is an achingly poignant novel about blood and belonging, dreams and desire.

    As soon as I’m alone in the woods, I can sense his eyes watching me as I get drunk on something else, his animal charge which fills the air between us.The Professor would be mad if I came back empty handed, but damn, if what I discover isn’t more of a distraction than bad weather, missing links or even avalanches.NikolaiThirty years ago, the forest claimed me, it nearly killed me but it claimed me, gave me a new life from the one I thought I knew. I learned to live, to hunt and thrive in the wilderness, at one with nature and within the circle of life, but always missing that one thing all the other creatures had, that one thing they enjoyed at least once every spring season.A mate.As soon as I see her, I know she’s been sent for me, sent for me to claim and to breed.To claim as my own.But she brings something else with her, the memory from a dream.Am I a man, or a monster?I want to be her man, her mate. Together. Forever.*Russian Mountain Man is a SHORT insta-everything standalone instalove romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

    But choosing the right design isn’t always easy. Tattoo Johnny to the rescue! Culled from the world’s leading tattoo Web site, this in-depth resource offers more than 1,000 designs in a wide range of styles, all by renowned artists: angels, devils, flowers, pirates, pin-ups, religious images, stars, zodiac signs, and more. Whether readers are getting their first tattoo, or a second, third, or tenth, this is the ideal place to find the perfect pattern.

     Sasha Ozerovsky is a young expert in Russian art at Leighton's, an exclusive Manhattan auction house. When a dealer arrives from Moscow with an exquisite 1913 Fabergé figurine, Sasha immediately recognizes a rare masterpiece. But in the high stakes art world, the price of an object is tied to its history. If Sasha can determine for whom the bejeweled piece was made and where it has been hiding for the past century, its value -- and Sasha's career -- will soar. But as Sasha moves between New York's high society and Russia's new rich, he discovers that the piece once belonged to his family, and he must face questions about their past that he never dared to ask. Superbly plotted and evoking the elegance of Russia's gilded age, Object of Virtue is an enthralling tale that explores what happens to a family torn between vanity and virtue.

    Petersburg was the haunt of poets, artists, and musicians, a place to meet, drink, read, brawl, celebrate, and stage performances of all kinds. It has since become a symbol of the extraordinary literary ferment of that time. It was then that Alexander Blok composed his apocalyptic sequence “Twelve”; that the futurists Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky exploded language into bold new forms; that the lapidary lyrics of Osip Mandelstam and plangent love poems of Anna Akhmatova saw the light; that the electrifying Marina Tsvetaeva stunned and dazzled everyone. Boris Pasternak was also of this company, putting together his great youthful hymn to nature, My Sister, Life. It was a transforming moment—not just for Russian but for world poetry—but a short-lived one. Within little more than a decade, revolution and terror were to disperse, silence, and destroy almost all the poets of the Stray Dog cabaret.

    The real story, which this book will reveal lies in what Mathilde did not say.

    In his view, the only way of escape from the many forms of slavery--spiritual, economic, political--which shackle & improverish the spirit lies in the fuller realization of personality, as he defines it. Berdyaev turned to religious views & played a large part in the renaissance of religious & philosophical thought in Russian intellectual life early in the 20th century. In 1922 he & a number of other intellectuals were expelled from the USSR. His writings most often deal with the problem of freedom & human relations to the world in light of this problem.In Place of an IntroductionPart 1PersonalityMaster, slave & free manPart 2Being & freedom. The slavery of man to beingGod & freedom. The slavery of man to GodNature & freedom. The cosmic lure & the slavery of man to natureSociety & freedom. The social lure & the slavery of man to societyCivilization & freedom. The slavery of man to civilization & the lure of cultural valuesThe slavery of man to himself & the lure of individualismPart 3The lure of slavery & sovereignty. The 3fold image of the stateThe lure of war. The slavery of man to warThe lure & slavery of nationalism. Nation & peopleThe lure & slavery of aristocracy. The 2fold image of aristocracyThe lure of the bourgeois spirit. Slavery to property & moneyThe lure & slavery of revolution. The 2fold image of revolutionThe lure & slavery of collectivism. Enticement of utopia. The 3fold image of socialismThe erotic lure & slavery. Sex, personality & freedomThe aesthetic lure & slavery. Beauty, art & naturePart 4The spiritual liberation of man. Victory over fear & deathThe lure & slavery of history. The three kinds of time. The 2fold interpretation of the end of history. Active-creative eschatology

    As the Soviet people looked back on decades of war and famine, conquest and achievement, and forward to sweeping changes during a time of new leadership and openness, the photographers were granted unprecedented access to homes, factories, schools and even prisons. They traveled to all 15 Soviet republics and across 11 time zones. They ventured into areas that have been closed to outsiders for centuries, and they came back with candid images of the daily life of the people behind the headlines, capturing a lost Soviet era, the twilight of a country.

    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

    The dead man was a vulgar ex-soldier; the woman--dazed but still alive--is an elegant beauty rumored to be a member of the royal family. Makine weaves an intricate tale of history, passion, madness, and ultimate tragedy.

    

    Its central theme of aestheticized sensuality has drawn comparisons with the work of contemporaries Oscar Wilde and André Gide. The young Vanya Smurov is deeply attached to his mentor, Dr. Larion Stroop, and to the world of Renaissance art which the latter reveals to him. Initially appalled by the sudden discovery of Stroop's homosexual leanings, Vanya abandons him to pursue a "normal" heterosexual existence. In turn disgusted by ensuing encounters, he returns to Dr. Stroop and accompanies him to Italy where he begins his real education—both in the world of art, and that of hedonism.