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.

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.

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.

Now a major motion picture from USA Films starring KristinScott Thomas and Sean Penn, and director Philip Haas (director ofAngels and Insects). In Up at the Villa, W. Somerset Maughamportrays a wealthy young English woman who finds herself confrontedrather brutally by the repercussions of whimsy. On the day herolder and prosperous friend asks her to marry him, Mary Leonarddemurs and decides to postpone her reply a few days. But drivinginto the hills above Florence alone that evening, Mary offers aride to a handsome stranger. And suddenly, her life is utterly,irrevocably altered. For this stranger is a refugee of war, and heharbors more than one form of passion. Before morning, Mary willwitness bloodshed, she will be forced to seek advice and assistancefrom an unsavory man, and she will have to face the truth about herown yearnings. Erotic, haunting, and maddeningly suspenseful, Up atthe Villa is a masterful tale of temptation and the capriciousnature of fate.

When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne,everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. Butwhen Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with talesof a strange party at a mysterious house and a beautiful girlhidden within it, he has been changed forever. In his restlesssearch for his Lost Estate and the happiness he found there,Meaulnes, observed by his loyal friend Francois, may risk losingeverything he ever had. Poised between youthful admiration andadult resignation, Alain-Fournier's compelling narrator carries thereader through this evocative and unbearably poignant portrayal ofdesperate friendship and vanished adolescence.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Now joining Everyman'sLibrary--the most extensive and distinguished collectible libraryof the world's greatest works--is an appealing new collection in asmall Pocket Classics format, perfect for gift giving and readingpleasure. "Christmas Stories" is a treasury of short fiction bygreat writers of the past two centuries--from Dickens and Tolstoyto John Updike and Alice Munro. As a literary subject, Christmashas inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fancifulflights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression isrepresented in this wonderfully engaging anthology. Goblins frolicin the graveyard of an early Dickens tale and a love-struck ghostdisrupts a country estate in Elizabeth Bowen's "Green Holly." Theplight of the less fortunate haunts Chekhov's "Vanka" and WillaCather's "The Burglar's Christmas" but takes a boisterously comicturn in Damon Runyon's "Dancing Dan's Christmas" and in JohnCheever's "Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor." From VladimirN

No career in modern American letters is at once so brilliant,varied, and controversial as that of Norman Mailer. In a span ofmore than six decades, Mailer has searched into subjects rangingfrom World War II to Ancient Egypt, from the march on the Pentagonto Marilyn Monroe, from Henry Miller and Mohammad Ali to JesusChrist. Now, in The Castle in the Forest, his first majorwork of fiction in more than a decade, Mailer offers what may behis consummate literary endeavor: He has set out to explore theevil of Adolf Hitler. The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be anexceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well asHitler’s father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and theintimate details of his childhood and adolescence. A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in theForest delivers its playful twists and surprises withastonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between goodand evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis t

The story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone inEngland, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. In a storywhere past and present confuse, she relives scenes of Japan'sdevastation in the wake of World War II.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a drearyclerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher inBelgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous butmanipulative Zoraide Reuter, complicates his affections for apenniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school.Also included in this edition is Emma, Charlotte Bronte's last,unfinished novel. Both works are drawn from the original Clarendontexts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable editionof this title.

From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Remains ofthe Day" "comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born inearly-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age ofnine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, morethan twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in Londonsociety; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him famehas done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents'alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthinecity of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own,painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyondrecognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficultto trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful andpsychologically acute, When We Were Orphans" "offers a profoundmeditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibilityof avenging one's past.

Recounts the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaireFelix Krull--a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern theconduct of ordinary people.

Call them tran*s of dreams or deadly accurate maps of thetremor zones of the psyche, the seven stories in this collectionengage and implicate us in the most fearful ways imaginable. Atwo-timing pornographer becomes an unwilling object in thefantasies of one of his victims. A jaded millionaire buys himselfthe perfect mistress and plunges into a hell of jealousy anddespair. And in the course of a weekend with his teenage daughter,a guilt-ridden father discovers the depths of his own blunderinginnocence. At once chilling and beguiling, and written in prose oflacerating beauty, In Between the Sheets is a tour de force by oneof England's most acclaimed practitioners of literary unease.

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.

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."

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.

Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

This is a film tie-in edition of the massive word-of-mouth hit novel, first published by Fig Tree in 2009 - to accompany the major new film starring Sissy Spacek, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone. Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver...There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and, white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies avision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dreamcountry, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death bybeheading for andquot; gnostical turpitude.andquot; an imaginarycrime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days inan absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers. anexecutioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by hisin-laws. who lug their furniture with them into his cell. WhenCincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills hisexecutioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the wholeworld they inhabit.