The Brothers Karamazov is a novel of realism and tells a dynastic story. It explores life and what it means through the use of a dysfunctional family, the Karamazovs. The family is headed by Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a cruel landowner, who has neglected and emotionally abuses his three sons. The eldest son, Dmitry, is in competition with his father over the same woman, although he is engaged to another. The same son has given up his inheritance in order to have money immediately, but suspects his father is cheating him financially.

Notes from Underground (also translated in English as Notes from the Underground or Letters from the Underworld, though "Notes from Underground" is the most literal translation) is an 1864 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?.

Crime and Punishment is told in the third person, with the narrator being omniscient. The protagonist is former student Romion Romanovich Raskolnikov a down-and-out and somewhat unbalanced individual who lives in a tiny garret at the top of a St. Petersburg apartment building. He is contemplating a crime to prove to himself that all human beings are capable of committing crimes of the most heinous sort. Events lead up to his murdering a pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna who he believes the world will be better off without. He believes the immorality of her death will be offset by the good he can do with the proceeds of his crime.

The idiot of the title is the protagonist of the novel, Prince Myshkin. He is a simple, honest man who has not had the benefit of education or a high level of intelligence, but his character is good and he lives by Christian values. At the beginning of the novel Myshkin is returning to St. Petersburg from Switzerland, where he has been under medical treatment for epilepsy. On the train home he meets two people who will play a part in his life. The first of this two is Parfyon Rogozhin, a young man of questionable character. The second person is Lebedev, a government official. When Myshkin arrives in St. Petersburg he moves out into society and meets Nastasya Fillipnova, who Rogozhin is obsessed with. Myshkin is considered an idiot by the St. Petersburg society because he is inarticulate and often stammers when he tries to talk to people.

The autobiography of literary figure Cyril Connolly, providing insight into his upper-class upbringing and life at Eton and Oxford, together with advice on how to avoid the pitfalls that await the would-be writer. First published in 1938.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality. This touching, uplifting novel spans decades of loyalty, anger, regret, and love in the lives of the Chance family. A father whose dreams of glory on a baseball field are shattered by a mill accident. A mother who clings obsessively to religion as a ward against the darkest hour of her past. Four brothers who come of age during the seismic upheavals of the sixties and who each choose their own way to deal with what the world has become. By turns uproariously funny and deeply moving, and beautifully written throughout, The Brothers K is one of the finest chronicles of our lives in many years. Praise for The Brothers K “The pages of The Brothers K sparkle.”—The New York Times Book Review “Duncan is a wonderfully engaging writer.”—Los Angeles Times “This ambitious book succeeds on almost every level and every page.”—USA Today “Duncan’s prose is a blend of lyrical rhapsody, sassy hyperbole and all-American vernacular.”—San Francisco Chronicle “The Brothers K affords the . . . deep pleasures of novels that exhaustively create, and alter, complex worlds. . . . One always senses an enthusiastic and abundantly talented and versatile writer at work.”—The Washington Post Book World “Duncan . . . tells the larger story of an entire popular culture struggling to redefine itself—something he does with the comic excitement and depth of feeling one expects from Tom Robbins.”—Chicago Tribune

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.