Akron Public Library

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up by falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn't experience the same kind of emotional upheaval: Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs...

While serving as a juror at the trial of a prostitute, Prince Nekhlyudov recognizes the defendant as a young servant girl he once loved and abandoned and tries to rectify the situation.

A mysterious cargo plane, flanked by a squadron of Russia's most lethal fighters, has just taken off from a remote airbase. Closely monitored by the United States, no one inside the Pentagon has any idea where it's going or what it's carrying. A high-level Russian defector, a walking vault of secrets that could shatter the West, seeks asylum in Norway. Across the continent, in the heart of Paris, a lone French agent stumbles upon a conspiracy so explosive...

"It is 1914 and the world has been on the brink of war so many times, many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia. But when Austria declares war on Serbia and...

Growing up as an orphan, Razumou adopted the belief that all of Russia was his family, a sentiment that he carries into his higher education. Because of this, when talks of revolution start arising in Russia, Razumou decides to stay neutral. However, this becomes increasingly difficult when most of his classmates start to express their ardent support for a revolution. Still, Razumou decides not to take a stand on either side. Since he feels all of...

'War and Peace' has been described as the Illiad and the Odyssey of the Russian people, with just cause. This is a work that speaks to the meaning and hope of life. Tolstoy's realism forced him to strip away much of the glorification of war and show the realities. Yet Tolstoy presents the events of 1812 as a moral crusade, and that the Russians won against the Napoleonic onslaught because of their adherence to simple, good and true virtues (as much...

An invitation from an old friend draws Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy. On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark. In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private,...

"In the autumn of 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family’s sensational disappearance. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets? Four years later, Ruth Macallister receives a postcard from the twin sister she hasn’t seen since their catastrophic...

Drafted against her will to serve the regime of Vladimir Putin as an intelligence seductress, Dominika Egorova engages in a charged effort of deception and tradecraft with first-tour CIA officer Nathaniel Nash before a forbidden attraction threatens their careers.