Pushkin's "novel in verse" has influenced Russian prose as well as poetry for more than a century. By turns brilliant, entertaining, romantic and serious, it traces the development of a young Petersburg dandy as he deals with life and love. Influeneced by Byron, Pushkin reveals the nature of his heroes through the emotional colorations found in their witty remarks, nature descriptions, and unexpected actions, all conveyed in stanzas of sonnet length (a form which became known as the Onegin Stanza), faithfully reproduced by Walter Arndt inthis Bollingen Prize translation. Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in imperial Russia during the 1820s, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast,& a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, & Pushkin's mercurial Muse. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other characters & offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and it shows him attempting to transform himself from romantic poet into realistic novelist. This new translation seeks to retain both the literal sense and the poetic music of the original, & capture the poem's spontaneity & wit. The introduction examines several ways of reading the novel, and the text is richly annotated.Nabokov notes how translating rhymed poetry into unrhymed prose robs a poem of its 'bloom'. A huge work of scholarship, this enormous book illuminates Pushkin's great verse novel in obsessive detail & describes early 19th century Russia.Nabokov's commentary consists of line-by-line notes on Pushkin's poem.

    Their story is one of hardship, violence, and cautious, heartbreaking attempts toward compassion. Lesley's fearless journey through his family history provides a remarkable portrait of hard living in the Western states, and confirms his place as one of the region's very best storytellers.

    Here is a story of a great civilization made human, played out through the lives of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land.

    His girlfriend has stopped returning his text messages. His dissertation adviser is dubious about his job prospects. It's the summer of 2008, and his bank account is running dangerously low. Perhaps a few months in Moscow are just what he needs. So Andrei sublets his room in Brooklyn, packs up his hockey stuff, and moves into the apartment that Stalin himself had given his grandmother, a woman who has outlived her husband and most of her friends. She survived the dark days of communism and witnessed Russia's violent capitalist transformation, during which she lost her beloved dacha. She welcomes Andrei into her home, even if she can't always remember who he is.Andrei learns to navigate Putin's Moscow, still the city of his birth, but with more expensive coffee. He looks after his elderly--but surprisingly sharp!--grandmother, finds a place to play hockey, a cafe to send emails, and eventually some friends, including a beautiful young activist named Yulia. Over the course of the year, his grandmother's health declines and his feelings of dislocation from both Russia and America deepen. Andrei knows he must reckon with his future and make choices that will determine his life and fate. When he becomes entangled with a group of leftists, Andrei's politics and his allegiances are tested, and he is forced to come to terms with the Russian society he was born into and the American one he has enjoyed since he was a kid.A wise, sensitive novel about Russia, exile, family, love, history and fate, A Terrible Country asks what you owe the place you were born, and what it owes you. Writing with grace and humor, Keith Gessen gives us a brilliant and mature novel that is sure to mark him as one of the most talented novelists of his generation.

    Nicholas became Tsar at the age of 26. Though a conscientious man who was passionate in his devotion to his country, he was weak, sentimental, dogmatic and indecisive. Ironically he could have made an effective constitutional monarch, but these flaws rendered him fatally unsuited to be the sole ruler of a nation that was in the throes of painful modernisation. That he failed is not surprising, for many abler monarchs could not have succeeded. Rather to be wondered at is that he managed, for 23 years, to hold on to power despite the overwhelming force of circumstances. Though Nicholas was exasperating, he had many endearing qualities. A modern audience, aware - as contemporaries were not - of the private pressures under which he lived, can empathise with him and forgive some of his errors of judgement. To some readers he seems a fool, to others a monster, but many are touched by the story of a well-meaning man doing his best under impossible conditions. He is, in other words, a biographical subject that engages readers whatever their viewpoint. His family was of great importance to Nicholas. He and his wife, Alexandra, married for love and retained this affection to the end of their lives. His four daughters, all different and intriguing personalities, were beautiful and charming. His son, the family's - and the nation's - hope for the future, was disabled by an illness that had to be concealed from Russia and from the world. It was this circumstance that made possible the nefarious influence of Rasputin, which in turn hastened the end of the dynasty.This story has everything: romance and tragedy, grandeur and misery, human frailty and an international catastrophe that would not only bring down the Tsar but put an end to the glittering era of European monarchies.

    Replacing the slim volume which introduced Stevie Smith to American readers, New Selected Poems is chronologically arranged and contains 165 poems along with many of the author's doodles.

    Prepare yourself for a distinctively Russian cauldron of artistry and history, nightclubs and vibrant street life. Mara Vorhees, Lonely Planet Writer Our PromiseYou can trust our travel information because Lonely Planet authors visit the places we write about, each and every edition. We never accept freebies for positive coverage so you can rely on us to tell it like it is.Inside This Book 80 art galleries & museums59 bars and cafes reviewed28 kremlins, cathedrals & palaces11 revamped exhibitions & art spaces2 banyas to get naked & sweat inComprehensive map sectionFeature coverage of top sightsRange of planning toolsIn-depth background on Russian art, architecture & literature

    Among them, Romain Rolland, the future Nobel Prize winner. In this work he pictures the eventful life and frescoes of the man who he considered a "Titan of literature", a spiritual messenger. It shows how his life was an epic: aristocratic childhood, Crimean War, fleeing into the unknown and death in the small station of Astopovo; or how Tolstoy was a mystic and preacher, prophet, genius, and enemy of the Orthodox Church and the clergy.

    Five other tales describe folk in Britain's lowest professional class between the late-1950s and 60s.

    No future. Only now.Originally a self-publishing success launched on N. Frank Daniels's MySpace page, the novel Futureproof tells the story of Luke and his friends as they navigate Atlanta’s subculture of delinquents. In short order, the seemingly harmless high from his first cigarette sends Luke on a downward spiral that ends only after years of self-abuse. It is an extreme cautionary tale told with sensitivity, ferocity, and grit.

    From Simon & Schuster, Conversations with Joseph Brodsky is Solomon Volkov's exploration of a poet's journey through the 20th century.A portrait of Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodskey is painted through fifteen years of interviews with the author, depicting his childhood years in war-torn Leningrad, his time in Kruschev's Russia, and his love of the work of fellow poets Auden and Frost.

    He had a beautiful new girlfriend and sudden prosperity as an author. But when he adopts an orphaned infant mouse, his world is turned on its head. The mouse comes to symbolize everything left unresolved in his life — his relationship with his divorced parents, his fear of family and commitment, and his inability to feel true happiness and love. By turns hilarious and moving, Mishka Shubaly’s latest Kindle Single captures the journey we all take in life — from being loved, to giving love. Cover by Adil Dara.

    He has come to detest his boring job and the petty superior he must defer to; his marriage is falling apart; he feels betrayed by his friends, he disdains the young student who offers him the passion and sense of wonder he once derived from his wife; and he seems concerned only with his annual hunting trip which, he hopes, will restore a purpose and identity to his life. But events continue to frustrate him: his wife aborts the child who might have saved their relationship; the new apartment they have wrested from the grudging bureaucracy seems more a tomb than a home; and ultimately, suicide appears to be Zilov's only alternative. But, in the end, emboldened by vodka and defying the persistent bad weather, Zilov does go hunting for the will to live is stronger than the desire to give up, and hope remains, even in the gray sameness of an existence gone stale.

    His rule served as the bookends between what were essentially two Russian empires; the one that his forefathers carved out through imperial ambition and the one dictated by the zealous communists of the Soviet Union bent on socialist expansion. Nicholas was by most accounts a conflicted ruler; a man viewed as kind and generous in his mannerisms yet alleged to be greatly disconnected and apathetic toward the subjects he was supposed to rule over. Inside you will read about... - Nicholas and the Funeral Bride - The Coronation Tragedy - Bloody Sunday - Nicholas' Reluctant Reforms - Three Hundred Years of Romanov Rule - The Tsar and World War I - The Last Russian Tsar And much more! Find out how this last Russian tsar rose to power and oversaw the end of a 300-year family dynasty as it teetered, tottered, and finally fell over the edge of oblivion. This is the story of Tsar Nicholas II.

    Look where we are. What else do we have to hide?'When nineteen-year-old Mia is fired from her job at an insurance company, she answers an ad in the newspaper. The ad says: 'Erotic Massage. Good Money. No Sex.'Mia takes to her new job with recklessness, aplomb and good humour. Over the next few years, as she works her way through Sydney's many parlours, she meets exquisite and complex women from every walk of life who choose sex work for myriad reasons. While juggling the demands of her new job, she battles her problematic drug use, and the mental illness that has shaped her life.But rather than needing saving from sex work, it is the work that sometimes helps to save Mia from herself.A raw and honest memoir about surviving, sex work, friendships, drugs and mental illness.