Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in 1914, Svejk, ‘one of the great characters of 20th century literature’ (New Republic), embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he...

Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in 1914, Svejk, ‘one of the great characters of 20th century literature’ (New Republic), embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he...

The hero of the new novel ‘The Aviator’ is a man in a state of tabula rasa: waking up one day in a hospital bed, he realizes that he knows absolutely nothing about himself - not his name, not who he is, not where he is. Hoping to restore the history of his life, he begins to write down the memories that visited him, fragmentary and chaotic: St. Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth...

Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the Ghetto to keep herself and her family alive. When she discovers that the entire Ghetto is to be ‘liquidated’-killed or ‘resettled’ to concentration camps-she desperately tries to find a way to save her family. She meets a group of young people who are planning the unthinkable: an uprising against the occupying forces. Mira joins the...

A classic of Russian theater, the play, based on an actual event, highlights the tragic tale of a woman, scorned by her lover decided to marry someone else. Her new fiance proves to be an embarassment and she returns to her old lover, hoping to wed. He's turns her down, as he is already engaged to someone else. Feeling dejected she contemplates suicide, only to be murdered by her drunk, jealous...

The book includes the story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 14 short stories (Tales of the Jazz Age). True American classics.

ets of Norway's capital in pursuit of nourishment. In four episodes he meets a number of more or less mysterious persons, the most notable being Ylajali, a young woman with whom he has a semi-sexual encounter. This woman haunts him and he attempts to refind her to no avail. The character falls into traps of his own making, and with a lack of food, warmth and basic comfort, his mind turns slowly...

The events of the novel The Night Reporter take place in Lviv in 1938. Journalist Marko Krylovych, nicknamed the 'night reporter' for his nightly coverage of the life of the city’s underbelly, takes on the investigation of the murder of a candidate for president of the city government.

In this magnificent collection of Stefan Zweig's short stories the very best and worst of human nature are captured with sharp observation, understanding and vivid empathy. Ranging from love and death to faith restored and hope regained, these stories present a master at work, at the top of his form. Perfectly paced and brimming with passion, these twenty-two tales from a master storyteller of...

Going to the Dogs is set in Berlin after the crash of 1929 and before the Nazi takeover, years of rising unemployment and financial collapse. The moralist in question is Jakob Fabian, ‘aged thirty-two, profession variable, at present advertising copywriter . . . weak heart, brown hair,’ a young man with an excellent education but permanently condemned to a low-paid job without security in the...

In these folk tales, young women go on long and perilous quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese, and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Some of the stories here were collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworkings of oral...