*A Story of a Life: Books 1–3* introduces the reader to the most crucial stages of the author’s biography—childhood, youth, and early adulthood—set against the backdrop of the country’s rapidly changing history. – In *Distant Years*, Paustovsky portrays the world of his childhood: family, nature, early travels, and the impressions that shaped the future writer’s character. *Restless Youth*...

– *The Story of a Life* is not a dry memoir but a major literary work in which a real-life biography transforms into a genuine novel. – Through the author’s recollections, the reader journeys from his pre-revolutionary childhood and school years to his early literary successes. The protagonist describes wars, relocations between cities, newspaper work, and encounters with the people who shaped...

Gifted with an amazing instinct and a phenomenal memory, Agatha Mystery dreams of becoming a mystery writer. That’s for the future, though; for now, she is simply a brilliant sleuth! Together with her hapless cousin Larry—a student at detective school—she travels the globe solving the most baffling mysteries. Assisting them are a loyal butler, a cantankerous Siberian cat, and a host of...

Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck’s new novel Kairos—an unforgettably compelling masterpiece—tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans....

'In the trenches of Stalingrad' (first published in 1946) was not easy for the reader and appeared in print only thanks to the perseverance of Alexander Tvardovsky, but it was from her that the glory of one of the best trends in Russian literature about the Great Patriotic War - 'lieutenant prose' began. Simple and humane, largely autobiographical, full of precise details and expressive...

The book recounts the turbulent life story of Pyotr Patrushev—a man who fled the USSR in 1962 and was sentenced to death by firing squad for 'treason against the Motherland.' He now lives in Australia by the ocean, writing books and articles and working as a translator.

A landmark novel that officially marks the very inception of the dystopian genre. Banned during the Soviet era, it is now considered a classic of not only Russian but also world literature of the 20th century. It is a novel about a ‘society of equals’ in which the human individual is reduced to a mere ‘number.’ Everything is standardized—clothing and apartments, thoughts and feelings. There are...

Oliver is eleven years old, and he chose his own name after a favorite Dickens character. He loves playing Snake on his phone and eating food ‘like they do in America’; he dreams of defeating the bully Tsapa, being cured of HIV, and finding a real family. But just as his prospective mom and dad arrive from Salt Lake City, TV reports begin predicting the imminent end of the world. Fiction writer...

A circle of hedonists at the Baden-Baden resort is rife with intense passions and ceaseless, heated debates about the fate of the fatherland. Grigory Litvinov, a thirty-year-old landowner, views this farce with a mix of boredom and irony; however, a chance encounter with a past love—the beautiful, high-society socialite Irina Ratmirova—splits his life into ‘before’ and ‘after,’ transforming him...

An alarm sounds among the Wild Chicks: a fox is at the doorstep! But this is no ordinary predator; it signals real trouble. Their beloved hens—symbols of their gang and their friendship—are in danger. To help the birds, the girls must devise a complex plan. However, the task won't be easy, and they will have to turn to the Pygmies for help. The rescue mission turns into a spy adventure—complete...

Gilles de Rais—a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc and a Marshal of France—was also a bloodthirsty serial killer. The Roman Emperor Tiberius—a contemporary of Jesus Christ—was one of history's most notorious libertines. What connection do they have to Epstein’s island? What is reincarnation, really? Are we responsible for actions committed in past lives? Was it truly *us*? Who was Jeffrey...