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.

    

    Wassily Kandisnsky’s Sounds (Klänge), a volume of poems written and illustrated by the Russian artist and pioneer of abstract painting, was originally published in a limited edition in Munich in 1912.  Although it was highly regarded by such artists as Hugo Ball and Jean Arp and acclaimed by the Zurich Dadaists, it remains one of the least known of Kandinsky’s major writings.  This is the first complete English translation of Kandinsky’s text.  Sounds is one of the earliest, most beautiful examples of a twentieth-century livre d’artiste and a rare instance of a book in which text and illustrations are the work of a single artist.  The poems, alternately narrative and expressive in quality, are witty, simple in structure and vocabulary, and often startling in content.  They repeatedly treat questions of space, color, physical design, and the act of seeing in a world that offers multiple and often contradictory possibilities to the viewer.  The woodcuts range from early Jugendstil-inspired, representational designs to vignettes that are purely abstract in form.  Published in the same year as his Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Sounds sheds a different but equally significant light on Kandinsky’s movement toward abstraction—a movement that was to exercise a profound influence on future directions in art.  In addition to the 38 poems and 56 woodcuts, which are arranged as in the original edition, the volume includes an introduction, the German text of the poems, and the artist’s chronology.

    The narrative traces the ebb and flow of their relationships and the changes wrought in their lives by the birth of a son to one of the women. Grekova conveys vividly not only the decisive differences between the postwar generation and those who participated in the defense of their country, but also the extraordinary capacity of human nature to endure and overcome seemingly unendurable suffering and deprivation. Above all, this text spotlights female experiences of the war: the fate of those who did not engage in battle at the front, but fought just as desperately to survive starvation, cold, and exhaustion, to maintain homes and, in a sense, a country to which soldiers could return. Ship of Widows provides a cultural key to an understudied period of Russia's history and an understudied segment of its population - women. This new paperback edition includes an illuminating foreword by Helena Goscilo.

    Starting with the earliest records of domestic cats 9,000 years ago in Africa and the Mediterranean and moving to the present, Lewis Blackwell weaves stories of one of humankind’s closest companions with a collection of more than 100 unforgettable images.Praise for The Life and Love of Cats: “Fabulous felines.” —People“As good as Blackwell's text is (and it's quite good—an approachable, informative, and appreciative study of cats of all breeds), the true appeal of the book is the stunning images.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Filled with gorgeous color photos of domestic and wild felines: Russian blues, Siamese, lions, leopards, Bengal tigers and more.” —BookPage“A global tour of one of the world’s most popular animals.” —The Charlotte Observer “This is a gorgeous coffee table book” —dooce

    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.

    What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief-systems of their age; religious, political and aesthetic.

    In Sculpting in Time, he has left his artistic testament, a remarkable revelation of both his life and work. Since Ivan's Childhood won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962, the visionary quality and totally original and haunting imagery of Tarkovsky's films have captivated serious movie audiences all over the world, who see in his work a continuation of the great literary traditions of nineteenth-century Russia. Many critics have tried to interpret his intensely personal vision, but he himself always remained inaccessible.In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky sets down his thoughts and his memories, revealing for the first time the original inspirations for his extraordinary films--Ivan's Childhood, Andrey Rublyov, Solaris, The Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia, and The Sacrifice. He discusses their history and his methods of work, he explores the many problems of visual creativity, and he sets forth the deeply autobiographical content of part of his oeuvre--most fascinatingly in The Mirror and Nostalgia. The closing chapter on The Sacrifice, dictated in the last weeks of Tarkovsky's life, makes the book essential reading for those who already know or who are just discovering his magnificent work.

    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.

    In this spirited memoir, Plisetskaya reflects on her personal and professional odyssey, presenting a unique view of the life of a Soviet artist during the troubled period from the late 1930s to the 1990s.Plisetskaya recounts the execution of her father in the Great Terror and her mother’s exile to the Gulag. She describes her admission to the Bolshoi in 1943, the roles she performed there, and the endless petty harassments she endured, from both envious colleagues and Party officials. Refused permission for six years to tour with the company, Plisetskaya eventually performed all over the world, working with such noted choreographers as Roland Petit and Maurice Béjart. She recounts the tumultuous events she lived through and the fascinating people she met—among them the legendary ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova, George Balanchine, Frank Sinatra, Rudolf Nureyev, and Dmitri Shostakovich. And she provides fascinating details about testy cocktail-party encounters with Khrushchev, tours abroad when her meager per diem allowance brought her close to starvation, and KGB plots to capitalize on her friendship with Robert Kennedy. Gifted, courageous, and brutally honest, Plisetskaya brilliantly illuminates the world of Soviet ballet during an era that encompasses both repression and cultural détente.Still prima ballerina assoluta with the Bolshoi Ballet, Maya Plisetskaya also travels around the world performing and lecturing. At the Bolshoi’s gala celebrating her 75th birthday, President Vladimir Putin presented her with Russia’s highest civilian honor, the medal for service to the Russian state, second degree. Tim Scholl is professor of Russian language and literature at Oberlin College. Antonina W. Bouis is the prize-winning translator of more than fifty books, including fiction, nonfiction, and memoirs by such figures as Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

    Estranged from her turbulent family for many years, Abbie is heartbroken to hear that they blame her for the tragedy.Determined to uncover her mother’s past, Abbie approaches her beloved grandmother, Millie, in search of answers. As the old woman recounts her own past, Abbie is transported back to the grandeur of the Russian Empire in 1911 with tales of her grandmother’s life as a governess and the revolution that exploded around her.As Abbie struggles to reconcile with her family, and to support herself and her child, she realizes that those long-ago events created aftershocks that threaten to upset the fragile peace she longs to create.

    This diary, which he kept in four notebooks over six weeks, is the only sustained, on-the-spot written account we have by a major artist of the experience of entering psychosis.Nijinsky's diary was first published in 1936, in a heavily bowdlerized version that omitted almost half of his text. The present edition, translated by Kyril FitzLyon, is the first complete version in English and the first version in any language to include the fourth notebook, which was written at the very edge of madness. It contains Nijinsky's last lucid thoughts -- on God, sex, war, and the nature of the universe, as well as on his own broken life. In her Introduction, the noted dance writer Joan Acocella explains the context of the diary and its place in the history of modernism.

    Petersburg for accompanying her husband Alexander on shooting and riding trips and for being outstandingly accurate with her gun. She was the daughter of a high-ranking Russian diplomat, and the mother of three young sons, destined to join the social and intellectual elite of imperial Russia. The Revolution of 1917 changed the course of these lives. By December 1918 her husband was dead, her children separated from her by the closing of the frontiers, and her own life was in danger. This is her account of how she faced these traumatic events, revealing the courage and determination she had shown in earlier times that helped her endure hunger, imprisonment, and loneliness. Her reunion with her sons in 1921 makes the months of danger and deprivation worthwhile. Illustrated with original family photographs this account will interest the serious academic and general reader alike.

    Who is he? And why would anybody kill him? Faukon Abbey CID officers, DI Greene and DC Ford and their friend Carter, a journalist at Abbey Chronicle uncover all hidden tragedies, murder being just one. They uncover what really happens behind the old town elegant facades - where evil crimes go unseen and unreported because they don't happen to people like us - - Or do they? And what happens when we find out? A tale of hidden secrets brought to light - about what happens when Pandora's box is opened, and revenge is unleashed.'

    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.