Technology Fiction

Ivan Bunin was the first Russian writer of the 20th century to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Like many other Russian writers, he emigrated after the Revolution and never returned to his homeland; The Life of Arseniev is the major work of his émigré period. In ways similar to Nabokov's Speak, Memory, Bunin's novel powerfully evokes the atmosphere of Russia in the decades before the Revolution and illuminates those Russian literary and cultural traditions eradicated in the Soviet era. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

Set in England during the 15th-century Wars of the Roses, this swashbuckling historical novel by the author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped tells the story of young Dick Shelton. Betrayed by his treacherous and brutal guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley, Dick seeks the help of John Amend-All, leader of the mysterious fellowship of the Black Arrow - and Brackley's sworn enemy. Pitted against fierce fighters, a treacherous priest, and Sir Daniel, Dick seeks to become a knight and rescue his true love.

Posadil ded repku i govorit: - Rasti, rasti, repka sladkaja! Rasti, rasti, repka krepkaja! Vyrosla repka sladkaja, krepkaja bol'shaja-prebol'shaja....

Taras Bulba describes the life of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to Zaporizhian Sich located in Southern Ukraine, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The Tinderbox is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a soldier who acquires a magic tinderbox capable of summoning three powerful dogs to do his bidding. When the soldier has one of the dogs transport a sleeping princess to his room, he is sentenced to death but cunningly summons the dogs to save his life. The tinderbox - a box to kindle a flame - is the equivalent of the wonderful lamp, the witch is the evil magician, and the dogs with swirling eyes take the place of the two genies of the lamps.

Oblomov is the best known novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. Oblomov is also the central character of the novel, often seen as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, a symbolic character in 19th-century Russian literature. Oblomov was compared to Shakespeare's Hamlet as answering "No!" to the question "To be or not to be?" Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions.

"A superbly atmospheric story set in the old Prague ghetto featuring the Golem, a kind of rabbinical Frankenstein's monster, which manifests itself every 33 years in a room without a door. Stranger still, it seems to have the same face as the narrator. This extraordinary book combines uncanny psychology of doppelganger stories with expressionism and more than a little melodrama...Meyrink's old Prague - like Dicken's London - is one of the great creations of City writing...." (Phil Baker in The Sunday Times)

This is an incredible story. The author, a failed, alcoholic Wall Street trader, had retreated to a monastery. It, too, was failing. Then, one fateful day, Brother Ty decided to let God be his broker--and not only saved the monastery but discovered the 7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth. Brother Ty's remarkable success has been studied at the nation's leading business schools and scrutinized by Wall Street's greatest minds, but until now the secret to his 7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth have been available only to a select few.

Ocherk Moj Pushkin - ne literaturovedcheskaya rabota. Eto skoree psihologicheskij etyud, popytka voskresit i vosproizvesti detskoe vospriyatie pushkinskogo tvorchestva, kotoroe - pri vsej naivnosti etogo vospriyatiya - okazyvalos' pervoj, na vsyu zhizn' neizgladimoj shkoloj ne tol'ko poticheskih vpechatlenij, no i nravstvennyh ponyatij.

The Possessed, also called Demons, is Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel about life in Russia at the end of the 19th century. In this highly political novel, Dostoevsky portrays the revolutionaries as demons or devils as they plot ruin and eventually turn on each other. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

This short novel, published after Tolstoy's death, is the last novel the great author wrote. It tells the true story of Hadji Murad (or Hadji Murat, alternatively), an Avar who commanded the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya in their resistance against assimilation into the Russian empire. Tolstoy had first heard of Murad during his travels, and the author became inspired by Murad's refusal to give in to the demands of a corrupt world. Hadji Murad shares many of the same themes found in War and Peace.

Far away, in the fairy country, there lived a king and Queen; they have no children. Went to the king in foreign lands, far to the sides, for a long time the house had never been; at that time the Queen bore him a son, Ivan Tsarevich, and the king was about to say something and does not know.

The Queen of Spades stands at the peak of Pushkin's achievement in prose writing. The story was popular with the general reading public at the time, particularly for its striking plot. The story opens with a number of young officers conversing after a card game. One of them, Narumov, wonders why his grandmother, who possesses the secret of winning at the game of faro, never plays. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The Duel takes place in a small and peaceful town by the Black Sea. Two friends chat while swimming. Ivan Laevsky, 28, reveals his private secrets to Samoilenko, an army doctor. He reveals that, two years ago, he began an affair with a married woman. They fled to the Caucasus to get a fresh start. But the town and its inhabitants turned out to be dull, and Laevsky did not like it there. He does not see any future for himself and Nadezhda Fyodorovna, only more and more lies.

Tolstoy's final work - a gripping novella about the struggle between the Muslim Chechens and their inept occupiers - is a powerful moral fable for our time. Inspired by a historical figure Tolstoy heard about while serving in the Caucasus, this story brings to life the famed warrior Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who has fought fiercely and courageously against the Russian empire. After a feud with his commander, he defects to the Russians, only to find that he is now trusted by neither side.

The poem has always been attributed to Ivan Semenovich Barkov, who died 30 years before the birth of Pushkin. But Barkov, by all indications, couldn't have written it. Recent studies suggest the collective work of Prov Sadovsky and his comrades, the Maly Theatre actors. So, this work will most likely came into being around the mid-19th century and then evolved over time.

Retold by Marion Palmer from the original Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris. This audiobook is adapted from the characters and backgrounds created for the Walt Disney motion picture Song of the South and other Walt Disney adaptations of the original Uncle Remus stories. Stories include "Who Was Uncle Remus?"; "De Tar-Baby"; "Brer Terrapin's Tug-of-War"; and many more. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The novel opens with a picture of morals and manners of the French society of the first quarter of the 18th century; with the Negro's life in Paris, his success in French society, and his love affair with a French countess. But "summoned both by Peter and by his own vague sense of duty" Ibrahim returns to Russia. The following chapters, full of historical color and antiquarianism, sketch the different strata of the Russian society. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

Searingly hot in the summer, bitterly cold in the winter, the ancestral estate of the Golovlyov family is the end of the road. There Anna Petrovna rules with an iron hand over her servants and family - until she loses power to the relentless scheming of her hypocritical son Judas. One of the great books of Russian literature, The Golovlyov Family is a vivid picture of a condemned and isolated outpost of civilization. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

Leskov's story is a dramatic portrayal of the amoral, ambiguous, elemental force of sexual passion, as intense in its heat as in its coldness. In stylistic directness and narrative concentration, it is unique among his works. He wrote it while visiting relatives in Kiev, where he was given space in the university's punishment room. He later described how his hair stood on end as he worked on it alone in that unlikely place and swore he would never describe such horrors again.