Excellent translations! Especially impressed with the Turgenev. Given the pub date these were translated about the time of the Prague Spring in 1968. Interesting choice for Bantam to bring out at that time.

So many other cultures seem to have a real body of short novels in their literature; why not American literature? These novels are exactly long enough for a plane ride. They're sticky, like all good fiction, and they're superbly structured. The best example of this genre in American lit. that I can think of is The Hours, Michael Cunningham's lovely appreciation of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. So it's present in the abilities of American writers...why not so much the readers? ( )