Their hopes for a life more suited to their cultivated tastes and sensibilities provide a touching counterpoint to the relentless flow of compromising events in the real world.In this powerful play, a landmark of modern drama, Chekhov masterfully interweaves character and theme in subtle ways that make the work's finale seem as inevitable as it is deeply moving. It is reprinted here from a standard text with updated transliteration of character names and additional explanatory footnotes.

    As the other man lies dying, the young soldier takes his horse and rides away. Years later, as a grown man in Paris whose life is still haunted by the murder he committed all that time ago, he comes across a story by a writer calling himself "Alexander Wolf", which recounts in astonishing detail the events of that day in 1919 from the dying victim's point of view. As he attempts to find the elusive writer, the narrator becomes involved in a series of strange encounters that lead him to question life, death and his own identity.Originally published in Russian in 1947-8 in the Russian-language New York periodical The New Review, and published now by Pushkin Press in its first new English translation since 1950, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is an early postmodern classic that stands alongside the best work by Vladimir Nabokov and Paul Auster.

    Fluent in five languages and able to get by in several others, Masha lives with her boyfriend, Elias. Her best friends are Muslims struggling to obtain residence permits, and her parents rarely leave the house except to compare gas prices. Masha has nearly completed her studies to become an interpreter, when suddenly Elias is hospitalized after a serious soccer injury and dies, forcing her to question a past that has haunted her for years.   Olga Grjasnowa has a unique gift for seeing the funny side of even the most tragic situations. With cool irony, her debut novel tells the story of a headstrong young woman for whom the issue of origin and nationality is immaterial—her Jewish background has taught her she can survive anywhere. Yet Masha isn’t equipped to deal with grief, and this all-too-normal shortcoming gives a particularly bittersweet quality to her adventures.

    Internationally acclaimed, Say No to Death has been translated into fourteen languages.'Dymphna Cusack... has created a number of attractive, likeable characters, given them a tragic dilemma, and moved them inexorably to a fine dramatic conclusion.' New York Times

    The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father’s wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevsky’s translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.

    But the Campaign for Real Cats sets out to change all that by helping us to recognise a true, unadulterated cat when we see one.For example: real cats have ears that look like they've been trimmed with pinking shears; real cats never wear flea collars . . . or appear on Christmas cards . . . or chase anything with a bell in it; real cats do eat quiche. And giblets. And butter. And anything else left on the table, if they think they can get away with it. Real cats can hear a fridge door opening two rooms away . . .

    One of the most famous German Krimis is perhaps the TV-series Tatort which means crime scene and has been running since 1970 on television channels in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Watching the weekly Tatort has become an almost iconic activity in everyday German culture. Each Sunday at 8:15pm, shortly after the evening news, millions are flocking to the screen to solve fresh crimes and mysteries.This book is a detective story especially written for German learners. Not only does it invite readers to help solve a crime but also to pick up important Krimi vocabulary that can serve as a preparation for watching series such as Tatort and many others in the original.Each chapter contains a selection of relevant words translated into English, and is followed by questions regarding the content. (The correct answers are to be found at the end of the book.)While the writing itself primarily aims at an entertaining and interactive experience, the language is specially designed to familiarize the reader with unique forms of spoken German, with an emphasis on dialogue and the daily culture of speech.

    Lessons are actually quite interesting when you have more at stake than just whether you'll get through it without being sent to the head. Harvey and his fellow gamblers start to bet on how many times the supply teacher will give a nervous twitch, how often the Head will blow his nose and lots of other possible outcomes. All of a sudden, school is fun - but then the gambling craze starts to spread and Harvey realises it's all getting out of control...A brilliant subversive look at classroom pranks and what goes on under the teacher's nose.

    The book at hand is the second volume of the four volume series. Louis XIV is well past the age where he should rule, but the ailing Cardinal Mazarin refuses to relinquish the reins of power. Meanwhile, Charles II, a king without a country, travels Europe seeking aid from his fellow monarchs. Athos still resides at La Fère while his son, Raoul de Bragelonne, has entered into the service in the household of M. le Prince. As for Raoul, he has his eyes on an entirely different object than his father — his childhood companion, Louise de la Valliere, with whom he is hopelessly in love. Porthos, now a baron, is off on some mysterious mission along with Aramis, who is now the Bishop of Vannes.

    A virtuoso study in betrayal and its consequences, it explores - really, colonizes - the consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel.

    The villagers are friendly and she is made aware of the mystery surrounding the previous ownder of her house, Ben Thornton. As Frances brings both the ancient house and its magnificent apple tree back to life, she finds out more about the house and its previous occupants - and at the same time begins to rebuild her own life.

    

    After disappearing from the Deputy Inspector's face, his nose shows up around town before returning to its proper place.

    After his exasperated wife, Victoria, leaves him, Ed finds consolation where he has always found it, in his own rich and eccentric imagination. Pursued by the demons of his own obsession, Ed embarks on a quixotic quest to find Victoria. As he prowls the city’s parking garages and motel strips, Ed begins a journey back into his past and is forced – most reluctantly – to confront the web of lies and self-deceptions he has woven to keep reality at bay – until even his fantasies start to turn against him. Keenly observant, humane, and darkly comic, My Present Age is an irresistible story about what happens when an Everyman becomes a casualty of modern life.

    The Lost Coast is a six-part novella, written to accompany the six episodes of the second season of Homecoming, an audio series starring Catherine Keener, David Schwimmer, and Oscar Isaac.The two works are designed to be read in alternating installments - Episode One of the podcast, then Chapter One of the book, then Episode Two, and so on - but other sequences are probably fine too.