Avid Reader Book Club

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness.

See the reading guide for more details.

• Synopsis
• Discuss Anna Karenina
• About the Book
• Leo Tolstoy Biography
• Other Works by Leo Tolstoy
• Movie Adaptations
• Reading Guide

Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Richard Hannay's ennui comes to an abrupt end when a murder is committed in his flat - only a few days before the dead man had revealed to him an assassination plot which would have terrible consequences for international peace.

Fearing the police will see him as the obvious suspect, and desperate to escape the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland. There, among the wild moors, he needs all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers...