Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Dead Souls

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol is a satirical exploration of 19th-century Russian society through the eyes of Pavel Chichikov, a cunning opportunist. Traveling across the countryside, Chichikov buys "dead souls"—deceased serfs still registered on census records—to secure loans and wealth. His scheme exposes the corruption, greed, and absurdities of landowners he encounters. Each character represents a caricature of human folly, from miserly farmers to pompous nobles. As Chichikov’s plan unravels, Gogol critiques the moral decay of imperial Russia, blending dark humor with social commentary. The novel remains an unfinished masterpiece, leaving readers pondering the fate of its antihero and the soulless world he inhabits.

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  The Iliad

  Homer Homer

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  "The Iliad" is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to the poet Homer, thought to have been composed in the 8th century BCE. The poem primarily focuses on the Trojan War and is specifically centered around the wrath of the Greek hero Achilles, whose rage is one of the epic's main themes. "The Iliad" encompasses high drama, heroic feats, and deep philosophies about honor, fate, and the human condition. It is considered one of the cornerstones of Western literature and has been translated into numerous languages over the centuries.

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  Don't Tell Alfred

  Nancy Mitford

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  In this delightful comedy, Fanny—the quietly observant narrator of Nancy Mitford's two most famous novels—finally takes center stage. 
   
   
   
  Fanny Wincham—last seen as a young woman in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate—has lived contentedly for years as housewife to an absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. But her life changes overnight when her beloved Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. 
   
   
   
  Soon she finds herself mixing with royalty and Rothschilds while battling her hysterical predecessor, Lady Leone, who refuses to leave the premises. When Fanny’s tender-hearted secretary begins filling the embassy with rescued animals and her teenage sons run away from Eton and show up with a rock star in tow, things get entirely out of hand. Gleefully sending up the antics of mid-century high society, Don’t Tell Alfred is classic Mitford.

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  Manon Lescaut

  Abbé Prévost

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  ‘The sweetness of her glance – or rather, my evil star already in its
  ascendant and drawing me to my ruin – did not allow me to hesitate
  for a moment...’ So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tale of
  passion and betrayal, of delinquency and misalliance, which moves
  from early 18th-century Paris – with its theatres, assemblies, and
  gaming-houses – via prison and deportation to a tragic denouement
  in the treeless wastes of Louisiana. It is one of the great love stories,
  and also one of the most enigmatic: how reliable a witness is Des
  Grieux, Manon’s lover, whose tale he narrates? Is Manon a thief and
  a whore, the image of love itself, or a thoroughly modern woman?
  Prévost is careful to leave the ambiguities unresolved, and to lay bare
  the disorders of passion.

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  The Law of Life

  Jack London

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  "The Law of Life" is a short story by the American naturalist writer Jack London. It was first published in McClure's Magazine, Vol.16, March, 1901. In 1902, it was published in a collection of Jack London's stories, The Children of Frost, by Macmillan Publishers.
  This short story covers the last 5 hours of the old and dying Inuit chief Koskoosh. His tribe needs to travel in search of clothing and shelter so he is left to die because of his age and inability to see properly. Even his son has to leave him because he has a new family to feed and take care of.
  However, the old Koskoosh is not dissatisfied as he knows the law of life and his desires. He accepts his fate peacefully and starts to visualize the events of his past. The images of both great famine and times of plenty vividly comes to his mind. As an experienced person he contemplates nature and ultimately accepts its individualism.

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai...

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  The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
   
  Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
   
  The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
   
  In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
   
  The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
   
  Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
   
  01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 3 - An Introduction 
  02 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  03 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  04 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  05 - Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  06 - How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials by Nikolai Schedrin 
  07 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy 
  08 - Aloysha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy 
  09 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy 
  10 - The Snowstorm - Part 1 by Leo Tolstoy 
  11 - The Snowstorm - Part 2 by Leo Tolstoy 
  12 - God Sees The Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy

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