The Dragon is a collection of fifteen of his short stories (including a 67 page novella) published between 1918 and 1935. It also includes an introduction by the translator, Mirra Ginsburg, and the text of the letter Zamyatin wrote to Stalin in which he asked to be allowed to "go abroad ... with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas without cringing before little men". The stories are all tales of everyday life before, during and after the revolution, but are rather hard to classify further — "realist fairy tales", perhaps.

    The poet Donald Davie writes: 'Vikram Seth's poems should have an impact far beyond much noisier pieces; for when did we last see a volume in which the poet's eye is on what is objectively before him, rather than on the intricacies of his own sensibility?'

    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.

    Packed with details of everyday life from giving birth in a Soviet hospital to living in a Moscow communal apartment. Forced to give up her American citizenship during Stalin's reign, Wettlin was coerced into becoming an informant for the KGB. She describes what Russia was like during and after World War II, her travels from the Baltic states to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, Leningrad, Uzbekistan and Georgia. Her mesmerizing book offers a background for understanding Soviet events that molded the Russian mind--from revolutionary enthusiasm to a complete repudiation of communism.

    They have become renowned for their visual excellence, which includes unparalleled photography, 3-D mapping, and specially commissioned cutaway illustrations. DK "Eyewitness Travel Guides" are the only guides that work equally well for inspiration, as a planning tool, a practical resource while traveling, and a keepsake following any trip. Each guide is packed with the up-to-date, reliable destination information every traveler needs, including extensive hotel and restaurant listings, themed itineraries, lush photography, and numerous maps.

    This classic historical novel, first published in 1904, creates an outstanding picture of the 4th century, Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate and the profound spiritual implications of his life and deeds.

    Even more farsighted are [his] anxious forebodings about the limits and costs of the utopian future." --Science Fiction StudiesThe contemporary reader will marvel at [Bogdanov's] foresight: nuclear fusion and propulsion, atomic weaponry and fallout, computers, blood transfusions, and (almost) unisexuality." --ChoiceA communist society on Mars, the Russian revolution, and class struggle on two planets is the subject of this arresting science fiction novel by Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), one of the early organizers and prophets of the Russian Bolshevik party. The red star is Mars, but it is also the dream set to paper of the society that could emerge on earth after the dual victory of the socialist and scientific-technical revolutions. While portraying a harmonious and rational socialist society, Bogdanov sketches out the problems that will face industrialized nations, whether socialist or capitalist.

    After months of job hunting, Daria, a young engineer, finds a plum position at a foreign firm as a secretary. But every plum has a pit. In this case, it’s Mr. Harmon, who makes it clear that sleeping with him is job one. Daria evades Harmon’s advances by recruiting her neighbour, the slippery Olga, to be his mistress. But soon Olga sets her sights on Daria’s job. Daria begins to moonlight as an interpreter at Soviet Unions(TM), a matchmaking agency that organizes “socials” where lonely American men can meet desperate Odessan women. Her grandmother wants Daria to leave Ukraine for good and pushes her to marry one of the men she meets, but Daria already has feelings for a local. She must choose between her world and America, between Vlad, a sexy, irresponsible mobster, and Tristan, a teacher nearly twice her age. Daria chooses security and America. Only it’s not exactly what she thought it would be… A wry, tender, and darkly funny look at marriage, the desires we don’t acknowledge, and the aftermath of communism, Moonlight in Odessa is a novel about the choices and sacrifices that people make in the pursuit of love and stability.

    The 25 poems from Pasternak's masterpiece Doctor Zhivago are followed by a masterful critique of their function in the novel and their value as poetry.

    Shipwrecked and his father murdered by ninjas, Jack Fletcher is rescued by the legendary swordmaster Masamoto Takeshi and taken to his samurai school in Kyoto. Hunted by the ninja Dragon Eye, Jack's only hope is to become a samurai warrior. And so his training begins . . . In order to perfect his fighting skills, Jack goes on a gasshuku. But nothing can prepare him for the punishment of warrior camp - the climax of which is to enter the Way of Fire, a terrifying ritual that burns away evil. Can Jack overcome his fear and walk the Way of Fire? Part of the award-winning Young Samurai series by Chris Bradford. Visit www.youngsamurai.com for competitions and to find out more about the books.Previously published for World Book Day. 'A fantastic adventure that floors the reader on page one and keeps them there until the end' - Eoin Colfer'Addictive' - Evening Standard

    Veronica is an aspiring historian living in present-day Los Angeles when she meets a mysterious man who may be heir to the Russian throne. As she sets about investigating the legitimacy of his claim through a winding path of romance and deception, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. Lena, a servant in the imperial Russian court of 1902, is approached by the desperate Empress Alexandra. After conceiving four daughters, the Empress is determined to sire a son and believes Lena can help her. Once elevated to the Romanov's treacherous inner circle, Lena finds herself under the watchful eye of the meddling Dowager Empress Marie. Charlotte, a former ballerina living in World War II occupied Paris, receives a surprise visit from a German officer. Determined to protect her son from the Nazis, Charlotte escapes the city, but not before learning that the officer's interest in her stems from his longstanding obsession with the fate of the Russian monarchy. Then as Veronica's passion intensifies, and her search for the true heir to the throne takes a dangerous turn, the reader learns just how these three vastly different women are connected. The Secret Daughter of the Tsar is thrilling from its first intense moments until its final, unexpected conclusion.

    This time, he’s in Cairo – bang in the middle of the Arab Spring. ‘The only story in the world’ according to his editor. But it isn’t – there’s another story, more significant and potentially more dangerous, and if no one else is willing to tell it . . . then Carver will, whatever the consequences.William Carver spots the Arab Spring early, aided by one of the infamous ‘Listeners’ at the BBC monitoring station in Caversham. He and his producer Patrick chase the story across North Africa before arriving in Egypt where the battle between the corrupt old order and the new will be both bloody and potentially definitive.Meanwhile, in Eritrea, two brothers begin to make their way up from the Horn of Africa and across the continent, desperate to find a better life in Europe. The horrors they endure at the hands of people traffickers and others along the way test their endurance and humanity to its limit. Over a few tumultuous months, these two stories come together to prove inextricably linked.Carver knows this story is a complex one; the world is watching, but in the age of Facebook, Twitter and rolling news, its attention span is increasingly short. And if everyone is a reporter, then who can you believe?

    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.

    Born in 1812, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner, he became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his time: as theorist, polemicist, propagandist, and political actor. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy said he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth." His monumental autobiography is an unparalleled record of his—and his century's—remarkable life.Herzen's story of his privileged childhood among the Russian aristocracy is lit with the insight of a great novelist. With a trained historian's sense of the interaction of people and events, he limns the grand line of revolutionary development from the earliest stirrings of Russian radicalism throughthe tumultuous ideological debates of the international. His close friends and enemies—Marx, Wagner, Mill, Bakunin, Garibaldi, Kropotkin—are brought brilliantly alive. Dwight Macdonald's knowledgeable and fluent abridgment makes this great work readily available to the modern reader.

    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.