Memoirs from the House of the Dead

Memoirs from the House of the Dead
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2001
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780192838681

In this almost documentary account of his own experiences of penal servitude in Serbia, Dostoevsky describes the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, the squalor and the degradation, in relentless detail. The inticate procedure whereby the men strip for the bath without removing their ten-pound leg-fetters is an extraordinary tour de force, compared by Turgenev to passages from Dante's Inferno. Terror and resignation - the rampages of a pyschopath, the brief serence interlude of Christmas Day - are evoked by Dostoevsky, writing several years after his release, with a strikingly uncharacteristic detachment. For this reason, House of the Dead is certainly the least Dostoevskian of his works, yet, paradoxically, it ranks among his great masterpieces.

House of Stone

House of Stone
Author: Anthony Shadid
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547134665

Culture and institutions.

Home

Home
Author: Julie Myerson
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2005
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0007148232

Ever thought about all the people who lived in your house before you? Julie Myserson did, and set out to learn as much as she could about their often fascinating lives. house, an ordinary home, and ordinary people have lived in it for over a century. But start to explore what they did, who they were, what they believed in, what they desired and they soon become as remarkable, as complicated, as fascinating as anyone. Victorian terraced family house, of average size, in a typical Victorian suburb (Clapham) and she loves it. She wanted to find out how much those who preceded her loved living there, so she spent hours and hours in the archives at the Family Record Office, the Public Record Office at Kew, local council archives and libraries across the country. Like an archaeologist, she found herself blowing the dust off files that no-one had touched since the last sheet of paper in them was typed. detective hunt as, bit by bit, she started to piece together the story of her house, built in 1877, as told by its former occupants in their own words and deeds. And so she met the bigamist, the Tottenham Hotspur fanatic, the Royal Servent, the Jamaican family and all the rest of the eccentric and entertaining former occupents of 34 Lillieshall Road. The book uncovers a lost 130-year history of happiness and grief, change and prudence, poverty and affluence, social upheaval and technological advance. our front door lock, yet we rarely confront the shadows that inhabit our homes. But once you do -- and Julie Myerson shows you how -- you will never bear to part from their company again. This is your home's story too.

Stories of House and Home

Stories of House and Home
Author: Christine Varga-Harris
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2016-02-19
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1501701843

Stories of House and Home is a social and cultural history of the massive construction campaign that Khrushchev instituted in 1957 to resolve the housing crisis in the Soviet Union and to provide each family its own apartment. Decent housing was deemed the key to a healthy, productive home life, which was essential to the realization of socialist collectivism. Drawing on archival materials, as well as memoirs, fiction, and the Soviet press, Christine Varga-Harris shows how the many aspects of this enormous state initiative—from neighborhood planning to interior design—sought to alleviate crowded, undignified living conditions and sculpt residents into ideal Soviet citizens. She also details how individual interests intersected with official objectives for Soviet society during the Thaw, a period characterized by both liberalization and vigilance in everyday life. Set against the backdrop of the widespread transition from communal to one-family living, Stories of House and Home explores the daily experiences and aspirations of Soviet citizens who were granted new apartments and those who continued to inhabit the old housing stock due to the chronic problems that beset the housing program. Varga-Harris analyzes the contradictions apparent in heroic advances and seemingly inexplicable delays in construction, model apartments boasting modern conveniences and decrepit dwellings, happy housewarmings and disappointing moves, and new residents and individuals requesting to exchange old apartments. She also reveals how Soviet citizens identified with the state and with the broader project of building socialism.

White House Years

White House Years
Author: Henry Kissinger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 1318
Release: 2011-05-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451636466

One of the most important books to come out of the Nixon Administration, the New York Times bestselling White House Years covers Henry Kissinger’s first four years (1969–1973) as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Among the momentous events recounted in this first volume of Kissinger’s timeless memoirs are his secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris to end the Vietnam War, the Jordan crisis of 1970, the India-Pakistan war of 1971, his back-channel and face-to-face negotiations with Soviet leaders to limit the nuclear arms race, his secret journey to China, and the historic summit meetings in Moscow and Beijing in 1972. He covers major controversies of the period, including events in Laos and Cambodia, his “peace is at hand” press conference and the breakdown of talks with the North Vietnamese that led to the Christmas bombing in 1972. Throughout, Kissinger presents candid portraits of world leaders, including Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Jordan’s King Hussein, Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman Mao and Chou En-lai, Willy Brandt, Charles de Gaulle, and many others. White House Years is Henry Kissinger’s invaluable and lasting contribution to the history of this crucial time.

Living History

Living History
Author: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2004-04-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780743222259

Hillary Rodham Clinton tells her life story, describing her dedication to social causes, her relationship with her husband, and her accomplishments and difficult periods as First Lady.