The world of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a world ruled by chance. From the very opening chapters, where a watchman is accidentally run over by a train at Moscow's Petersburg station, to the final, climactic scenes of arbitrary destruction when Levin searches for Kitty in a forest beset by lightning,...

Isabel Allende was born August 2, 1942. Although born in Peru, she was raised in Chile as the daughter of government official. She began her writing career as a journalist and worked throughout South America.Allende begins writing all of her novels on January 8. The tradition began when, on that dat...