Describing family life set against the backdrop of war, this novel follows the fortunes of the Bolkonsky and Rostov families as Napoleon's armies sweep through Europe, invade Russia and end in Napoleon's defeat. It captures national events, private experiences of individuals, and the triangle of affection that binds the central characters.

Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequently haunted by visions of the dead man and prevented from enjoying the fruits of their crime.

Pechorin is certainly a dangerous man - Byronic in his wasted gifts, his cynicism, his predatory and flamboyant energy for any kind of action that will stave off boredom. In five linked episodes, Mikhail Lermontov builds up the portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times.

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a member of Russia's dying aristocracy a man so lazy that he has given up his job in the Civil Service, neglected his books, insulted his friends and found himself in debt. Too apathetic to do anything about his problems, he lives in a grubby, crumbling apartment, waited on by Zakhar, his equally idle servant.

Anna Karenina .

An old woman is dying of cancer in Cape Town. A classics professor, Mrs Curren has always been opposed to the brutality of apartheid, but has lived insulated from its true horrors. Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought.