Stefan Zweig based his biography of Marie Antoinette, who became the Queen of France at the age of fifteen, on the correspondence between her and her mother, and her great love the Count Axel von Fersen. Zweig analyzes the chemistry of a woman’s soul from her intimate pleasures to her public suffering as a Queen under the weight of misfortune and history. Zweig describes Marie Antoinette in the...

The Danish novelist, poet and playwright Hans Christian Andersen is known throughout the world primarily as a storyteller. His tales and stories have been translated into more than 100 languages. The strength and immortality of Andersen's fairy tales lies in the fact that they are poetic, wise, imbued with goodness, love for nature and beauty in all its manifestations. Many heroes of his...

Illustrated by Vladislav Erko. In Ukraininan.

This one is very gloomy but without the dramatic battles and mayhem found in other Russian novels. This is a grim study of a spiritually bankrupt country split by greed and selfishness. A very bitter portrayal of Russia.

Роман "Похоть" открывает постмодернистскую линию в творчестве крупнейшего и самого "неудобного" немецкоязычного крупнейшего писателя современности, лауреата Нобелевской премии 2004 года, Эльфриды Елинек. Своей темой Елинек делает насилие и власть в частной и интимной жизни, роль женщины в мире тотального потребительства, доминирование мифов обыденного сознания в отношениях между людьми и...

The new novel by the renowned writer and Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Karpov is dedicated to one of the most brilliant and talented commanders of the Great Patriotic War, Army General I.D. Chernyakhovsky. He was loved and respected by everyone – from soldier to general. Decisiveness and integrity, a sharp, quick mind and personal courage, and at the same time openness and warmth in his...

' (Booker Prize in 2003). All the action of the novel is developed in one room of the Soviet House-boarding school for disabled, where two friends live. As helpless people they are fully isolated from the outer world and taken a bad care of. All they do is talking and playing chess. All life seems to them a chessboard on which each figure has the value. Both know that sooner or later when game...

Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic...