The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates she will, like all dissenters, be hanged or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men whose future she will change forever...

Natasha's Dance - A Cultural History of Russia

Orlando Figes

This tremendously attractive, ambitious, dizzying book is in every way a worthy successor to Figes' bestselling "A People's Tragedy". The whole panorama of Russia's mighty culture is conjured up in a way that is fresh, intimate and immediate. Whether talking about music or novels, buildings or paintings...