"Нет ни волшебней, ни премудрей
Тебя, благоуханный край,
Где чешет золотые кудри
Над вечным Рейном — Лореляй."
Марина Цветаева, декабрь 1914

Германская легенда рассказывает о златовласой коварной красавице, которая сидела на скале и так прекрасно пела, что плывущие мимо забывали обо всем на свете, и воды Рейна смыкались над их головами и обломками их судов.

Когда-то, давным-давно тому назад, поздравляя женщин Национальной (тогда ещё Республиканской) библиотеки с 8 Марта и преподнося каждой по изысканной розе, наш коллега Александр Сапаев сказал: «Милые девушки! Пусть эти розы ещё не успеют завянуть, а ваши мужчины уже принесут вам новые!»

Сквозь новую прозрачную дверь зала национальных литератур хорошо видна размещенная в холле третьего этажа выставка картин Ивана Шишкина. Среди зеленовато-коричневых летних пейзажей взгляд вдруг выхватывает пронзительно глубокую синеву и нечто ослепительно белоснежное… Это хорошо знакомое всем полотно «На севере диком…» (1891).

Лунная ночь… Неприступный утес… На краю обрыва – занесенное снегами гордое и сильное дерево, которое с достоинством переносит все удары судьбы: ветра, стужу, бураны, одиночество… Созерцание этого живописного шедевра неизбежно вызывает у зрителей острую потребность в душевной теплоте и участии…

Today we are reading “The Gift of the Magi” - a short story written by an American short story writer William Sydney Porter. He has written his literary works under the pen name of O. Henry. This story was first published in 1906. The story might be the most famous short story of all time. It's certainly the most famous of O. Henry's, standing out among many stories with surprise endings, like "The Last Leaf" and "After Twenty Years."

Today we are reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, moral fantasy novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, published in 1890. The novel, the only one written by Wilde, had six additional chapters when it was released as a book in 1891. The work, an archetypal tale of a young man who purchases eternal youth at the expense of his soul, was a romantic exposition of Wilde’s own Aestheticism.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930) was an English writer best known for his detective stories about Sherlock Holmes, a world-famous detective and his assistant Dr. Watson.

There is something magical about the character of Sherlock Holmes. He is known and loved all over the world. The image of the tall, thin man with a cape, carrying a magnifying glass and wearing a deerstalker is recognized immediately. He is the international icon for the detective, the crime-solver and the righter of wrongs. Since their publication, the stories of Sherlock Holmes have never been out of print. They are available in almost every language in the world and there are versions in Pitman’s shorthand and Braille. Sherlock Holmes is the most filmed of all literary characters.

Today we are reading “The Last Leaf” – a story written by an American short-story writer O. Henry.

“The Last Leaf ” was first published in 1907. It was written in the time period when New York was experiencing rapid population growth partly due to the immigration of European immigrants to the United States.

Today we are reading “The Forsyte Saga” - the best-known work of English novelist John Galsworthy (1867-1933), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932.

As published in 1922, “The Forsyte Saga” consisted of the novel “The Man of Property” (1906), the interlude (a short story) “Indian Summer of a Forsyte” (1918), the novel “In Chancery” (1920), the interlude “Awakening” (1920), and the novel “To Let” (1921). The saga chronicles the lives of three generations of a large upper middle-class family between the late Victorian era and the 1920s.

Today we are reading “The Great Gatsby” - the third novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1925. Set in what was called the Jazz Age (a term popularized by Fitzgerald) New York, the novel tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth. “The Great Gatsby” vividly captures its historical moment: the economic boom of postwar America, the new jazz music, the free-flowing illegal liquor. As Fitzgerald later remarked in an essay about the era, it was “a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.”

Today we are reading James Fenimore Cooper’s novel «The Last of the Mohicans».

«The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757» is the second and most popular novel of the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper. It was first published in two volumes in 1826. In terms of narrative order, it is also the second novel in the series, taking place in 1757 during the French and Indian War.