In a shocking clash between the warriors and the merchant class of seventeenth century Japan, there emerged the most unlikely set of heroes--the forty-seven ronin, or ex-samurai, of Ako.

    In 1936, Shostakovitch, just thirty, fears for his livelihood and his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has taken a sudden interest in his work and denounced his latest opera. Now, certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, executed on the spot), Shostakovitch reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, various women and wives, his children—and all who are still alive themselves hang in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, for decades to come he will be held fast under the thumb of despotism: made to represent Soviet values at a cultural conference in New York City, forced into joining the Party and compelled, constantly, to weigh appeasing those in power against the integrity of his music. Barnes elegantly guides us through the trajectory of Shostakovitch's career, at the same time illuminating the tumultuous evolution of the Soviet Union. The result is both a stunning portrait of a relentlessly fascinating man and a brilliant exploration of the meaning of art and its place in society.

    These seemingly undistinguished possessions, stuffed into a worn-out suitcase, take on a riotously funny life of their own as Dovlatov inventories the circumstances under which he acquired them, occasioning a brilliant series of interconnected tales: A poplin shirt evokes the bittersweet story of a courtship and marriage, while a pair of boots (of the kind only the Nomenklatura can afford) calls up the hilarious conclusion to an official banquet. Some driving gloves—remnants of Dovlatov’s short-lived acting career—share space with neon-green crepe socks, reminders of a failed black-market scam. And in curious juxtaposition, the belt from a prison guard’s uniform lies next to a stained jacket that once belonged to Fernand Léger.Imbued with a comic nostalgia overlaid with Dovlatov’s characteristically dry wit, The Suitcase is an intensely human, delightfully ironic novel from “the finest Soviet satirist to appear in English since Vladimir Voinovich.”

    Investigating the strange ways in which love, in spite of everything - time, war, betrayal - can last, Zweig tells the story of Ludwig, an ambitious young man from a modest background who falls in love with the wife of his rich employer. His love is returned, and the couple vow to live together, but then Ludwig is dispatched on business to Mexico, and while he is there the First World War breaks out. With travel and even communication across the Atlantic now shut down, Ludwig makes a new life in the New World. Years later, however, he returns to Germany to find his beloved a widow and their mutual attraction as strong as ever. But is it possible for love to survive precisely as the impossible?

    Set in Weimar Germany soon after Germany's catastrophic loss of World War I, the story follows a young gambler who loses all in Berlin, then flees the chaotic city, where worthless money and shortages are causing pandemonium. Once in the countryside, however, he finds a defeated German army that has camped there to foment insurrection. Somehow, amidst it all, he finds romance - it's The Year of Living Dangerously in a European setting. Fast-moving as a thriller, fascinating as the best historical fiction, and with lyrical prose that packs a powerful emotional punch, Wolf Among Wolves is the equal of Fallada's acclaimed Every Man Dies Alone as an immensely absorbing work of important literature.

    The book brilliantly probes the psychodynamics of alienation, obsession, and self-destruction, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by forces beyond his control to the edge of the abyss. Hamsun influenced many of the major 20th-century writers who followed him, including Kafka, Joyce and Henry Miller. Required reading in world literature courses, the highly influential, landmark novel will also find a wide audience among lovers of books that probe the "unexplored crannies in the human soul" (George Egerton).

    With incomparable glee, Miller shifts effortlessly from Virgil to venereal disease, from Rabelais to Roquefort. In this seductive technicolor swirl of Paris and New York, he captures like no one else the blending of people and the cities they inhabit.

    He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology, and horoscope. When he died in 1935, Pessoa left behind a trunk filled with unfinished and unpublished writings, among which were the remarkable pages that make up his posthumous masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague." Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, captivatingly translated by Richard Zenith, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.

    Expected to redeem himself in this magical land of opportunity, young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzying reversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures.Although Kafka never visited America, images of its vast landscape, dangers, and opportunities inspired this saga of the "golden land." Here is a startlingly modern, fantastic and visionary tale of America "as a place no one has yet seen, in a historical period that can't be identified," writes E. L. Doctorow in his new foreword. "Kafka made his novel from his own mind's mythic elements," Doctorow explains, "and the research data that caught his eye were bent like rays in a field of gravity."

    1 Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Vol. 2 (Shawl Scraps) Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Vol. 5 Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Vol. 6 Kitty's Class Day and Other Stories Spinning Wheel Stories Silver Pitchers and Independence A Garland for Girls Behind A Mask The Abbot's Ghost The Candy Country The Mysterious Key and What it Opened Pauline's Passion and Punishment A Modern Cinderella Story Marjorie's Three Gifts Mountain Laurel and MaidenhairThe Plays Comic Tragedies Norna; Or, The Witch's Curse Captive of Castile The Greek Slave Ion Bianca The Unloved WifeNon-Fiction Little Women Letters From The House of AlcottBiography Daughters of The Puritans By Seth Curtis Beach

    The animals seem intelligent enough, and Red recruits Slim to help him train the odd creatures to do circus tricks. But the boys are about to discover their playthings aren’t exactly animals—and they’ve allowed themselves to be caught for a reason . . . Youth is a riveting tale from the author of countless classics, including I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.

    The controversy provoked by Babbitt was influential in the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Lewis in 1930.

    But this year strange things were happening, terrifying things that had never happened before. Inexplicable sounds and smells; new, unimaginable creatures half glimpsed through the leaves. What the people didn't, and perhaps never would, know, was that the day of their people was already over.From the author of Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors is a startling recreation of the lost world of the Neanderthals, and a frightening vision of the beginning of a new age.

    Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than just its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed and experienced.

    This monumental eBook features beautiful illustrations, informative introductions.CONTENTS:The Early NovelsCLAUDE’S CONFESSIONTHE DEAD WOMAN’S WISHTHE MYSTERY OF MARSEILLETHERESE RAQUINMADELEINE FERATThe Rougon-Macquart CycleTHE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONSTHE KILLTHE FAT AND THE THINTHE CONQUEST OF PLASSANSABBE MOURET’S TRANSGRESSIONHIS EXCELLENCY EUGENE ROUGONTHE DRAM SHOPA LOVE EPISODENANAPIPING HOTTHE LADIES’ PARADISETHE JOY OF LIFEGERMINALHIS MASTERPIECETHE EARTHTHE DREAMTHE HUMAN BEASTMONEYTHE DOWNFALLDOCTOR PASCALThe Three CitiesLOURDESROMEPARISThe Four GospelsFRUITFULNESSLABOURTRUTHThe Short StoriesSTORIES FOR NINONNEW STORIES FOR NINONPARISIAN SKETCHESTHE ATTACK ON THE MILLTHE FLOODCAPTAIN BURLETHE MILLER’S DAUGHTERTHE DEATH OF OLIVIER BECAILLENAÏS MICOULINJ’Accuse !I ACCUSE...!The CriticismÉMILE ZOLA by Henry JamesTHE ZOLA CONTROVERSY by G. K. ChestertonM. ZOLA by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-CouchAn Extract from ‘MY LITERARY PASSIONS’ by William Dean HowellsÉMILE ZOLA by William Dean HowellsZOLA by Henryk SienkiewiczBORLASE AND SON by James JoyceThe BiographyWITH ZOLA IN ENGLAND by Ernest Alfred VizetellyResourcesTHE ROUGON-MACQUART FAMILY TREEINDEX OF CHARACTERS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIESINDEX OF LOCATIONS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES