Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and our modern world, and is still known worldwide as the quintessential Russian novel. Readers of all backgrounds have debated its historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, probing the moral and ethical dilemmas that Dostoevsky so brilliantly stages throughout his narrative. Yet, at its heart, this...

"When Ivan refuses to join the Communist youth organisation his classmates make fun of him and try to force Ivan off the school hockey team. His teacher tells him that Christians are not allowed to attend university. Then Ivan is taken in for questioning by the Secret Police. The situation gets even worse when Ivan's Christian friends begin to think that he is an informer. But it's not Ivan who is the informer. It's not Ivan who is passing on information...

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and...

A comic novel about the theater world in early Soviet Russia and a "biting attack on censorship" (The Guardian, UK). From the author of The Master and Margarita, this semi-autobiographical satirical novel paints a vibrant portrait of life behind the curtains of the Russian literary and theater arenas in the early decades of the twentieth century. Maxudov is a failed novelist who, after contemplating suicide, adapts his novel into a play that-seemingly...

"Ivan isn't the most popular boy at school but he is the best at football. Some of his classmates think that Ivan shouldn't be allowed to play on the school team because he is a Christian. Ivan has a lot of teasing and bullying to put up with. However, when Ivan and Katya get the chance to travel to the Lenin Collective Farm, to help with the harvest, things begin to change for the better. In the middle of all that fresh air and exercise Ivan discovers...

An imaginative retelling of Catherine the Great's improbable rise to power--as seen through the ever-watchful eyes of an all-but-invisible servant close to the throne.

From the author of The Battle: A novel that brings French history to life as Napoleon moves in on Russia-where the ultimate test awaits. The French army stands at the gates of Moscow. Exhausted and demoralized, Napoleon's men are a mere fraction of the four-hundred-thousand-strong force that crossed the river Niemen in the summer, just three months earlier. Still, the sight of this famous city feels like a triumph and a chance, at last, to enjoy a...