"In 1849 Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison camp for his participation in a utopian socialist discussion group. The account he wrote after his release, based on notes he smuggled out, was the first book to reveal life inside the Russian penal system. The book not only brought him fame but also founded the tradition of Russian prison writing. Notes from a Dead House (sometimes translated as The House of the Dead)...

"Politics, religion, culture, travel, science and technology, family life: nothing escaped the eye and pen of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, nineteenth-century America's most famous writer and a legend in his own lifetime. Though chiefly known today for his classic novels of childhood, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and for his short stories, he produced even more nonfiction of an impressive quality. Twain lived a life as...

'The sea, the sea': Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected...

"A hardcover omnibus edition of three classic works by British writer Angela Carter: two story collections (The Bloody Chamber and Fireworks) and one novel (Wise Children). A bibliography and chronology and a new introduction by Joan Acocella are included"--

The Black Dahlia depicts the infrastructure of L.A.'s most sensational murder case. A young cop morphs into the obsessed lover and lust-crazed avenger. His rogue investigation is a one-way ticket to hell. The Big Nowhere blends the crime novel with the political novel. It is winter, 1950, and the L.A. authorities are targeting movieland Reds. The three cops assigned to the job are out to grab all the kudos they can. But a series of brutal sex killings...

"A collection of never-before-translated poems by the widely beloved medieval Persian poet Rumi. Rumi (1207-1273) was trained in Sufism-a mystic tradition within Islam-and founded the Sufi order known to us as the Whirling Dervishes, who use dance and music as part of their spiritual devotion. Rumi's poetry has long been popular with contemporary Western audiences because of the way it combines the sacred and the sensual, describing divine love in...

In this remarkable collection--the first of its kind--poets from around the world give eloquent voice to the trials, hopes, rewards, and losses of the experience of migration. Each year, millions join the ranks of intrepid migrants who have reshaped societies throughout history. The movement of peoples across borders--whether forcible, as with the Middle Passage and the Trail of Tears, or voluntary, as with the great migrations from Europe, Asia,...

"An epic tale of a stubborn sheep farmer named Bjartur of Summerhouses who decides to spit in the direction of his country's pagan traditions, and its landowners, making his way alone."--

"An anthology of poems from around the world and through the ages about insects"--