Nabokov's first novel. A tale of youth, first love andnostalgia. In a Berlin rooming house, a vigorous young officerpoised between his past and his future relives his first loveaffair.

A dying man cautiously unravels the mysteries of memory and creation. Vadim is a Russian emigre who, like Nabokov, is a novelist, poet and critic. There are threads linking the fictional hero with his creator as he reconstructs the images of his past from young love to his serious illness.

The real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magicalliterary detective story--subtle, intricate, leading to atantalizing climax--about the mysterious life of a famouswriter.

"Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of thehero--sullen, gawky Hugh Person--to Switzerland . . . As a youngpublisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armandeon the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from agrinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride. . . . Eightyears later--following a murder, a period of madness and a briefimprisonment--Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle outhis past. . . . The several strands of dream, memory, and time[are] set off against the literary theorizing of R. and, morecentrally, against the world of observable objects." --MartinAmis

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965--thirty years after itsoriginal publication-- Despair is the wickedly inventive andrichly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfectcrime--his own murder.

Twenty-two-year-old Karla is thrilled to be hired as anentertainer on the Sound of Music cruise ship where the rum punchis 80 percent Kool-Aid, the ice sculp- tures are plastic, and her"fake it till you make it" M.O. seems adventuresome. Karla is lessthrilled when her new boyfriend, Jack, suggests that they form asinging duo on land, but by now faking enthusiasm has become a wayof life. She and Jack buy backing tracks, crib lyrics from theradio, and embark on a not-as-glamorous-as-it-should-be careerperforming in the luxury hotel bars of the Middle East and China.But after a thousand and one nights on the road, Karla and Jackfind themselves struggling to keep their act both personal andprofessional together. Funny, fast-paced, and incisive, A Thousandand One Nights captures the performances, large and small, we useto make it through life.

Pronounced obscene when it was first published in 1915, " TheRainbow" is the epic story of three generations of the Brangwens, aMidlands family. A visionary novel, considered to be one ofLawrence's finest, it explores the complex sexual and psychologicalrelationships between men and women in an increasinglyindustrialized world. "Lives are separate, but life iscontinuous--it continues in the fresh start by the separate life ineach generation," wrote F. R. Leavis. "No work, I think, haspresented this perception as an imaginatively realized truth morecompellingly than "The Rainbow.""

" A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say 'Slum ' because he could see no more." But to its residents thisderelict corner of Trinidad' s capital is a complete world, whereeverybody is quite different from everybody else. There' s Popo thecarpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build " the thing withouta name." There' s Man-man, who goes from running for public officeto staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bullywith glass tear ducts. There' s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrallto her monstrous husband. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S.Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighborsconstruct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhoviancompassion.Set during World War II and narrated by an unnamed- butprecociously observant- neighborhood boy, Miguel Street is a workof mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy andanarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.

Robert Prentice has spent all his life attempting to escape hismother's stifling presence. His mother, Alice, for her part,struggles with her own demons as she attempts to realize her dreamsof prosperity and success as a sculptor. As Robert goes off tofight in Europe, hoping to become his own man, Richard Yatesportrays a soldier in the depths of war striving to live up to hisheroic ideals. With haunting clarity, Yates crafts an unforgettableportrait of two people who cannot help but hope for more even aslife challenges them both.

Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of threenovels--previously published separately by Anchor--by NaguibMahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here isa collection of Mahfouz's artful meditations on the vicissitudes ofpost-Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique,together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonantvision of modern life in the Middle East. The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In theaftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work andfamily to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail inpost-Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blamesan unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himselfto destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility,isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who isone of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution inEgypt.

Kafka's first and funniest novel, Amerika tells the story ofthe young immigrant Karl Rossmann who, after an embarrassing sexualmisadventure, finds himself "packed off to America" by his parents.Expected to redeem himself in this magical land of opportunity,young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzyingreversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures. Although Kafka never visited America, images of its vastlandscape, dangers, and opportunities inspired this saga of the"golden land." Here is a startlingly modern, fantastic andvisionary tale of America "as a place no one has yet seen, in ahistorical period that can't be identified," writes E. L. Doctorowin his new foreword. "Kafka made his first novel from his ownmind's mythic elements," Doctorow explains, "and the research datathat caught his eye were bent like light rays in a field ofgravity."

They meet by chance on Copacabana Beach:Tristao Raposo, a poor black teen from the Rio slums, surviving dayto day on street smarts and the hustle, and Isabel Leme, anupper-class white girl, treated like a pampered slave by her absentthough very powerful father. Convinced that fate brought themtogether, betrayed by families who threaten to tear them apart,Tristao and Isabel flee to the farthest reaches of Brazil's wildwest -- unaware of the astonishing destiny that awaits them . . .Spanning twenty-two years, from the mid-sixties to the lateeighties, BRAZIL surprises and embraces the reader with itscelebration of passion, loyalty, and New World innocence. "A tourde force . . . Spectacular." -- Time "Updike's novel, as tender asit is erotic, becomes a magnificently wrought love story . . . .Beautifully written." -- Detroit Free Press "From the Paperbackedition."

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentrichurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For therest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With thisbrilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures thecoming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel Garcia Ma rquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to theplace of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire castof strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants ofa fully realized black world.

In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in theclear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwelldiscusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhoodschooling, the Spanish Civil War, Henry Miller, Britishimperialism, and the profession of writing.

From the author of "Chatterton" and "Shakespeare: A Biography"comes a gripping novel set in London that re-imagines an infamous19th-century Shakespeare forgery. Charles and Mary Lamb, who willin time achieve lasting fame as the authors of "Tales fromShakespeare for Children," are still living at home, caring fortheir dotty and maddening parents. Reading Shakespeare is thesiblings' favorite reprieve, and they are delighted when anambitious young bookseller comes into their lives claiming topossess a 'lost' Shakespearea play. Soon all of London is eagerlyanticipating opening night of a star-studded production of the playnot knowing that they have all been duped by charlatan and afraud.

Gordon Comstock is a poor young man who works in a grubbyLondon bookstore and spends his evenings shivering in a rentedroom, trying to write. He is determined to stay free of the "moneyworld" of lucrative jobs, family responsibilities, and the kind ofsecurity symbolized by the homely aspidistra plant that sits inevery middle-class British window.

The bestselling tale of Romanov intrigue from the author of"The Kitchen Boy" Book groups and historical fiction buffs havemade Robert Alexanderas two previous novels word-of-mouth favoritesand national bestsellers. Set against a backdrop of ImperialRussiaas twilight, "The Romanov Bride" has the same enduringappeal. The Grand Duchess Elisavyetaas story begins like a fairytaleaa German princess renowned for her beauty and kind heartmarries the Grand Duke Sergei of Russia and enters the Romanovaslavish court. Her husband, however, rules his wife as he doesMoscowawith a cold, hard fist. And, after a peaceful demonstrationbecomes a bloodbath, the fires of the revolution link Elisavyetaasdestiny to that of Pavelaa young Bolshevikaforever.

Inspired by the long-standing affair between Frieda, Lawrence'sGerman wife, and an Italian peasant who eventually became her thirdhusband, Lady Chatterley's Lover is the story of ConstanceChatterley, who, while trapped in an unhappy marriage to anaristocratic mine owner whose war wounds have left him paralyzedand impotent, has an affair with Mellors, the gamekeeper. FrankKermode calls the book Lawrence's "great achievement" and Anais Nindescribes it as "artistically . . . his best novel." This ModernLibrary Paperback Classics edition includes the tran* of thejudge's decision in the famous 1959 obscenity trial that allowedthe novel to be published in the United States.

From the imagination of one of the most brilliant writers of ourtime and bestselling author of The Life of Thomas More , anovel that playfully imagines how the "modern" era might appear toa thinker seventeen centuries hence. At the turn of the 38th century, London's greatest orator, Plato,is known for his lectures on the long, tumultuous history of hisnow tranquil city. Plato focuses on the obscure and confusing erathat began in A.D. 1500, the Age of Mouldwarp. His subjects includeSigmund Freud's comic masterpiece "Jokes and Their Relation to theSubconscious," and Charles D.'s greatest novel, "The Origin ofSpecies." He explores the rituals of Mouldwarp, and the later cultof webs and nets that enslaved the population. By the end of hislecture series, however, Plato has been drawn closer to the subjectof his fascination than he could ever have anticipated. At oncefunny and erudite, The Plato Papers is a smart andentertaining look at how the future is imagined, the presentabsorbed, and the past misrepresent

Newlyweds Jennifer and Matt really love each other. They never lived together before they were married-and so both were shocked to learn all the little things that go with living with one's spouse. Who knew that in his family, Saturdays were for tackling chores, while in her family Saturdays were for sleeping late? Now, two nice people from nice families are finding out that they do everything differently-and suddenly, they're in the ring with gloves on! Week by week, the fights take both of them by surprise-they never meant to be the kind of couple that acts this way. Simultaneously, though, Jennifer and Matt are building something strong, knocking down old walls of habit and finding the strong foundation of a love that will see them through.This is one year in a marriage-the beginning of a lifetime.

From the inexhaustible imagination of Ian McEwan--a master ofcontemporary fiction and author of the Booker Prize-winningnational bestseller Amsterdam --an enchanting work of fictionthat appeals equally to children and adults. First published in England as a children's book, TheDaydreamer marks a delightful foray by one of our greatestnovelists into a new fictional domain. In these seven exquisitelyinterlinked episodes, the grown-up protagonist Peter Fortunereveals the secret journeys, metamorphoses, and adventures of hischildhood. Living somewhere between dream and reality, Peterexperiences fantastical transformations: he swaps bodies with thewise old family cat; exchanges existences with a cranky infant;encounters a very bad doll who has come to life and is out forrevenge; and rummages through a kitchen drawer filled with uselessobjects to discover some not-so-useless cream that actually makespeople vanish. Finally, he wakes up as an eleven-year-old inside agrown-up body and embarks on the truly fantast

A national bestseller, Snobbery examines the discriminatingqualities in all of us. With dishy detail, Joseph Epstein skewersall manner of elitism in contemporary America. He offers his archobservations of the new footholds of snobbery: food, fashion,high-achieving children, schools, politics, being with-it,name-dropping, and much more. Clever, incisive, and immenselyentertaining, Snobberyexplores the shallows and depths of statusand taste -- with enviable results.