The Fyodor Dostoevsky Bbc Radio Drama Collection

Set in the years leading up to and culminating in Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion, this novel focuses upon an entire society torn by conflict and change. Here is humanity in all its innocence and corruption, its wisdom and folly.

Earphones Award Winner and nominee for the 2019 Audie Award for Literary Fiction & Classics Featured title on PBS's The Great American Read in 2018 Living in a squalid room in St. Petersburg, the indigent but proud Rodion Raskolnikov believes he is above society. Obsessed with the idea of breaking the law, Raskolnikov resolves to kill an old pawnbroker for her cash. Although the murder and robbery are bungled, Raskolnikov manages to escape without being seen. And with nothing to prove his guilt and a mendacious confessor in police custody, Raskolnikov seems to have committed the perfect crime. But in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's world of moral transgressions, with its reason and its consequences, Raskolnikov's plan has a devastating hitch: the feverish delirium of his own conscience. AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from the masters of storytelling. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or rediscover an old favorite, these new editions open the door to literature's most unforgettable characters and beloved worlds. Revised edition: Previously published as Crime and Punishment, this edition of Crime and Punishment (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Rowan Williams explores the intricacies of speech, fiction, metaphor, and iconography in the works of one of literature's most complex and most misunderstood, authors. Williams' investigation focuses on the four major novels of Dostoevsky's maturity (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Devils, and The Brothers Karamazov). He argues that understanding Dostoevsky's style and goals as a writer of fiction is inseparable from understanding his religious commitments. Any reader who enters the rich and insightful world of Williams' Dostoevsky will emerge a more thoughtful and appreciative reader for it.

'A daring and mesmerizing twist on the art of biography' – Douglas Smith, author of Rasputin: The Biography 'Anyone who loves [Dostoevsky's] novels will be fascinated by this book' – Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche Dostoevsky's life was marked by brilliance and brutality. Sentenced to death as a young revolutionary, he survived mock execution and Siberian exile to live through a time of seismic change in Russia, eventually being accepted into the Tsar's inner circle. He had three great love affairs, each overshadowed by debilitating epilepsy and addiction to gambling. Somehow, amidst all this, he found time to write short stories, journalism and novels such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, works now recognised as among the finest ever written. In Dostoevsky in Love Alex Christofi weaves carefully chosen excerpts of the author's work with the historical context to form an illuminating and often surprising whole. The result is a novelistic life that immerses the reader in a grand vista of Dostoevsky's world: from the Siberian prison camp to the gambling halls of Europe; from the dank prison cells of the Tsar's fortress to the refined salons of St Petersburg. Along the way, Christofi relates the stories of the three women whose lives were so deeply intertwined with Dostoevsky's: the consumptive widow Maria; the impetuous Polina who had visions of assassinating the Tsar; and the faithful stenographer Anna, who did so much to secure his literary legacy. Reading between the lines of his fiction, Christofi reconstructs the memoir Dostoevsky might have written had life – and literary stardom – not intervened. He gives us a new portrait of the artist as never before seen: a shy but devoted lover, an empathetic friend of the people, a loyal brother and friend, and a writer able to penetrate to the very depths of the human soul.

In these three unforgettably intense plays, Henrik Ibsen explores the problems of personal and social morality that he perceived in the world around him and, in particular, the complex nature of truth. The Pillars of the Community (1877) depicts a corrupt shipowner’s struggle to hide the sins of his past at the expense of another man’s reputation, while in The Wild Duck (1884) an idealist, believing he must tell the truth at any cost, destroys a family by exposing the lie behind his friend’s marriage. And Hedda Gabler (1890) portrays an unhappily married woman who is unable to break free from the conventional life she has created for herself, with tragic results for the entire family.

For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind.” This book unpacks that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In Theater of the Mind, Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

This is a compendium of the best works by one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel, in a lushly illustrated hardcover edition with illuminating commentary from a brilliant young Oxford scholar and critic. “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” So begins Virginia Woolf’s much-beloved fourth novel. First published in 1925, Mrs. Dalloway has long been viewed not only as Woolf’s masterpiece, but as a pivotal work of literary modernism and one of the most significant and influential novels of the twentieth century. In this visually powerful annotated edition, acclaimed Oxford don and literary critic Merve Emre gives us an authoritative version of this landmark novel, supporting it with generous commentary that reveals Woolf’s aesthetic and political ambitions—in Mrs. Dalloway and beyond—as never before. Mrs. Dalloway famously takes place over the course of a single day in late June, its plot centering on the upper-class Londoner Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing to throw a party that evening for the nation’s elite. But the novel is complicated by Woolf’s satire of the English social system, and by her groundbreaking representation of consciousness. The events of the novel flow through the minds and thoughts of Clarissa and her former lover Peter Walsh and others in their circle, but also through shopkeepers and servants, among others. Together Woolf’s characters—each a jumble of memories and perceptions—create a broad portrait of a city and society transformed by the Great War in ways subtle but profound ways. No figure has been more directly shaped by the conflict than the disturbed veteran Septimus Smith, who is plagued by hallucinations of a friend who died in battle, and who becomes the unexpected second hinge of the novel, alongside Clarissa, even though—in one of Woolf’s many radical decisions—the two never meet. Emre’s extensive introduction and annotations follow the evolution of Clarissa Dalloway—based on an apparently conventional but actually quite complex acquaintance of Woolf’s—and Septimus Smith from earlier short stories and drafts of Mrs. Dalloway to their emergence into the distinctive forms devoted readers of the novel know so well. For Clarissa, Septimus, and her other creations, Woolf relied on the skill of “character reading,” her technique for bridging the gap between life and fiction, reality and representation. As Emre writes, Woolf’s “approach to representing character involved burrowing deep into the processes of consciousness, and, so submerged, illuminating the infinite variety of sensation and perception concealed therein. From these depths, she extracted an unlimited capacity for life.” It is in Woolf’s characters, fundamentally unknowable but fundamentally alive, that the enduring achievement of her art is most apparent. For decades, Woolf’s rapturous style and vision of individual consciousness have challenged and inspired readers, novelists, and scholars alike. The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway, featuring 150 illustrations, draws on decades of Woolf scholarship as well as countless primary sources, including Woolf’s private diaries and notes on writing. The result is not only a transporting edition of Mrs. Dalloway, but an essential volume for Woolf devotees and an incomparable gift to all lovers of literature.

The story behind the origins of Anna Karenina and the turbulent life and times of Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is one of the most nuanced characters in world literature and we return to her, and the novel she propels, again and again. Remarkably, there has not yet been an examination of Leo Tolstoy specifically through the lens of this novel. Critic and professor Bob Blaisdell unravels Tolstoy’s family, literary, and day-to-day life during the period that he conceived, drafted, abandoned, and revised Anna Karenina. In the process, we see where Tolstoy’s life and his art intersect in obvious and unobvious ways. Readers often assume that Tolstoy, a nobleman-turned-mystic would write himself into the principled Levin. But in truth, it is within Anna that the consciousness and energy flows with the same depth and complexities as Tolstoy. Her fateful suicide is the road that Tolstoy nearly traveled himself. At once a nuanced biography and portrait of the last decades of the Russian empire and artful literary examination, Creating Anna Karenina will enthrall the thousands of readers whose lives have become deeper and clearer after experiencing this hallmark of world literature.

“In this hilarious, candid, and thought-provoking memoir, [Groskop] explains how she used lessons from Russian classics to understand herself better.” —Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times–bestselling author As Viv Groskop knows from personal experience, everything that has ever happened to a person has already happened in the Russian classics: from not being sure what to do with your life (Anna Karenina), to being hopelessly in love with someone who doesn’t love you back (Turgenev’s A Month in the Country), or being socially anxious about your appearance (all of Chekhov’s work). In The Anna Karenina Fix, a sort of literary self-help memoir, Groskop mines these and other works, as well as the lives of their celebrated creators, and her own experiences as a student of Russian, to answer the question “How should you live your life?” This is a charming and fiercely intelligent book, a love letter to Russian literature and an exploration of the answers these writers found to life’s questions. “[Groskop is] a delight, a reader’s reader whose professional and personal experiences have allowed her to write the kind of book that not only is complete unto itself, but makes you want to head to the library and revisit or discover the great works she loves.” —The Washington Post “Learn how to hack life nineteenth-century Russian style! You’ll totally be like Anna Karenina without getting (spoiler alert) run over by a train!” —Gary Shteyngart, New York Times-bestselling author “For anyone intimidated by Russia’s daunting literary heritage, this humorous yet thoughtful introduction will serve as the perfect entrée.” —Publishers Weekly

See? All we need is... a map and...some kind of plan.This overcoat is neutral darling, neither Bolshevik nor Menshevik. Just essence of Prole. In Kiev during the Russian Civil War, the Turbin household is sanctuary to a ragtag, close-knit crowd presided over by the beautiful Lena. As her brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends charge in from the riotous streets amidst an atmosphere of heady chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, declaiming, taking baths, playing guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised and in its brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world. And those are the real enemies we face, deep in the shadows. This modern man with no name, no past, no love. This desperate hate-filled man born of loneliness and frustration. This man with nothing to be proud of, nothing he is part of. . .

Prince Myshkin, a sort of holy fool, stumbles into a sordid love triangle when he returns from exile to Russia. Myskhin means well, but he's simply too good for this world, and his well-meaning intentions bring disaster on himself and those he loves. Based on the classic novel, The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

From the foremost historian of 20th century Spain, A People Betrayed is the story of the devastating betrayal of Spain by its political class, its military and its Church.

W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, William Golding, Elizabeth Jennings, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Stevie Smith . . . These are some of the great poets and novelists whose struggles with faith find expression in their works, and who demonstrate the fascinatingly different forms that faith can take in different times and places. Richard Harries considers the work of twenty of these writers, painting vivid pictures of their lives and times. He also provides numerous critically sympathetic insights into the spiritual dimension of their writings. The result is a book for readers of all religious persuasions, especially those who are fascinated by the ways in which faith is refracted through the lens of great poetry and fiction. Also by Richard Harries: The Beauty and the Horror (SPCK, 2016) ‘A major new defence of Christianity that does not flinch from asking difficult questions about the kind of God who could have created our world.’ The Bookseller ‘A heartening book, confronting the hardest questions with wide knowledge and deep wisdom.’ John Carey, Chief Literary Reviewer, Sunday Times ‘An eloquent, honest and engaging case for Christian faith.’ The Tablet ‘A deeply interesting book.’ Mary Warnock

Introduction by Simon Franklin; Translation by Michael Glenny "From the Hardcover edition."

"This fascinating little volume explores the stuff that dreams are made of and the role the pandemic is playing in them. The dreams from Barrett's survey are riveting vignettes--from terrifying to touching to hilarious. Her decades of scientific research and clinical practice inform incisive commentary on what these dreams reveal about society's response. She offers simple exercises for managing anxieties over COVID-19 and for inspiring adaption in this unique period of history. A great read!" -Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club DREAM: I looked down at my stomach and saw dark blue stripes. I "remembered" these were the first sign of being infected with COVID-19. DREAM: My home was a Covid-19 test center. People weren't wearing masks. I'm taken aback because I wasn't asked to be a test site. I'm worried that my husband and son (who actually lives out of state) will catch it because of my job as a healthcare worker. DREAM: I was a giant antibody. I was so angry about COVID-19 that it gave me superpowers, and I rampaged around attacking all the virus I could find. I woke so energized! Since the COVID-19 pandemic swept around the world, people have reported unusually a vivid and bizarre dream lives. The virus itself is the star of many--literally or in one of its metaphoric guises. As a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School, Deirdre Barrett was immediately curious to see what our dream lives would tell us about our deepest reactions to this unprecedented disaster. Pandemic Dreams draws on her survey of over 9,000 dreams about the COVID-19 crisis. It describes how dreaming has reflected each aspect of the pandemic: fear of catching the virus, reactions to sheltering at home, work changes, homeschooling, and an individual's increased isolation or crowding. Some patterns are quite similar to other crises Dr. Barrett has studied such as 9/11, Kuwaitis during the Iraqi Occupation, POWs in WWII Nazi prison camps, and Middle Easterners during the Arab Spring. There are some very distinctive metaphors for COVID-19, however: bug-attack dreams and ones of invisible monsters. These reflect that this crisis is less visible or concrete than others we have faced. Over the past three months, dreams have progressed from fearful depictions of the mysterious new threat . . . to impatience with restrictions . . . to more fear again as the world begins to reopen. And dreams have just begun to consider the big picture: how society may change. The book offers guidance on how we can best utilize our newly supercharged dream lives to aid us through the crisis and beyond. It explains practical exercises for dream interpretation, reduction of nightmares, and incubation of helpful, problem-solving dreams. It also examines the larger arena of what these collective dreams tell us about our instinctive, unconscious responses to the threat and how we might integrate them for more livable policies through these times. Deirdre Barrett, PhD is a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School. She has written five books including Pandemic Dreams and The Committee of Sleep, and edited four including Trauma and Dreams. She is Past President of The International Association for the Study of Dreams and editor of its journal, DREAMING.

Trans, from the Greek.