Wie alle Hauptwerke Hermann Hesses hat auch der Demian, den der damals 40jährige Autor mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg schrieb, eine ebenso ungewöhnliche wie spannende Entstehungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte. Daß dieses im Herbst 1917 vollendete Buch erst im Juni 1919, ein halbes Jahr nach Kriegsende, veröffentlicht wurde, lag an der Unbekanntheit des Verfassers. Denn Hesse hatte das Manuskript dem...

Wer kennt sie nicht: die Verfilmung des ›Hauptmann von Köpenick‹, mit Heinz Rühmann in der Titelrolle. Schon auf der Bühne war Zuckmayers Theaterstück mit seiner Mischung aus Komik und Sozialkritik ein großer Publikumserfolg. Der Film aber aus dem Jahr 1956 hat das Drama so populär gemacht wie kein anderes aus dem 20. Jahrhundert. Bis heute weckt es unsere Sympathie für all die Schelme und...

Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Germany in 1937, and later a camp in Rouen, the nameless twenty-seven-year-old German narrator of Seghers’s multilayered masterpiece ends up in the dusty seaport of Marseille. Along the way he is asked to deliver a letter to a man named Weidel in Paris and discovers Weidel has committed suicide, leaving behind a suitcase containing letters and...

For more than a century, this wonderful book by Mark Twain has been equally warmly received by more and more generations of readers, remaining timeless. And this is not surprising, because it has everything that so captivates the reader - the romance of adventure, a plot with unexpected twists, lively humor and even the experiences of the young hero. It turned out to be so real because, as the...

For a century and a half now, the adventures of the mischievous and inventor Tom and his friend Huck Finn from a provincial American town called St. Petersburg on the banks of the Mississippi have fascinated and captivated modern readers. An interesting plot and original characters raise this story to unprecedented heights. The publication presents the classic translation by K. Chukovsky....

You just boarded a flight to New York. There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard. What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped. For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die. The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane. Enjoy the flight.

Twins Victoria Stitch and Celestine are denied their royal birth-right. Celestine accepts the decision with good grace, but Victoria Stitch is consumed with her obsession for power. The twins are like moonlight and sunshine – could it be possible to break free of the role you have been given, rewrite your story, and change your own destiny?

I'm always up for a good mystery, but when the big question is what I should get Dad for his birthday, I don't have a clue! And then another mystery comes my way -- one that involves Heather Simmons, a leading candidate in the upcoming election for mayor of River Heights. My friends and I are pretty sure that her daughter Leslie, musician extraordinaire, has been kidnapped. But the thing is,...

Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become the King's Champion. But she is far from loyal to the crown. Though she goes to great lengths to hide her secret, her deadly charade becomes more difficult when she realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. Her search for answers ensnares those closest to her, and no one is safe from suspicion-not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the...

Don Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray-he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants-Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam...

Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Torless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Torless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third pupil which both repel and...

His short story collection Drei Frauen (Three Women) -- consisting of Grigia, The Portuguese Lady, and Tonka -- was published in 1924. Musil in these tales explores Europe on the verge between civilization and brutality, the modern and pre-modern, nationalism and humanism, and between ‘precision and soul,’ to use Musil's own phrase. In encounters with the three women of the title, each male...