Literary History & Criticism

An intellectual detective story, this history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain....

With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet....

What Shakespeare's plays can teach us about modern-day politics.

A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple.

Hedda Gabler, the daughter of a deceased General, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middle class tedium...

One of William Faulkner’s finest novels, As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren’s family sets out to fulfill her last wish....

Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain's most recognisable and well-loved actors. He has played many roles on stage, film, television and radio - ranging from Winston Churchill to Stalin, George Smiley to King Arthur.

In a magisterial work, Jaan Puhvel unravels the prehistoric Indo-European origins of the traditions of India and Iran, Greece and Rome, of the Celts, Germans, Balts, and Slavs.

Featuring a new introduction by Ken Liu, this revised edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s first full-length collection of essays covers her background as a writer and educator, her thoughts on writing, and her commentary on literary science fiction and fantasy and their future.

Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and, most importantly, enjoyment....

The Company They Keep is the first and most complete examination of the Inklings and their close literary collaboration. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien met each week with a community....

The Heroine’s Journey describes contemporary woman’s search for wholeness in a society where she has been defined according to masculine values....

A landmark collection of writings by street prostitutes, exotic dancers, nude models, escorts, porn stars, and massage parlor workers....

The Master and Margarita is one of the most famous and best-selling Russian novels of the 20th century, despite its surreal environment....

The true story behind the iconic fictional detective is “a fascinating chapter in the history of publishing” (The Seattle Times)....

What is Tom Bombadil doing in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? His bright blue coat and yellow boots seem out of place with the grandeur of the rest of the narrative....

Gli scritti riuniti in questa raccolta vertono sulle funzioni della letteratura, su autori che Eco ha frequentato a lungo come Nerval, Joyce, Borges (ma...

Short Stories in French for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment....

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, Lucy Worsley has written an Introduction to her Sunday Times Bestselling biography - the book that leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them....

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!). These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance....

The Tao Te Ching is a Chinese classic text written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated.

Over the course of a steamy and tense afternoon, twelve jurors deliberate the fate of a 19-year-old boy alleged to have murdered his own father....

In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town....

Fourteen novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn’t mean it's all made-up....

In this book, psychotherapist Dr. Stacey Simmons explores the tracks women are placed on that turn them against themselves at a young age. Using fairy tales, stories, films, television, musicals, and the lives of her patients, Dr. Simmons reveals an ancient pattern hidden in plain sight for over a thousand years. She named it The Queen’s Path, and in this book she explains how it has been used against women for millennia, and how women can turn the pattern to their advantage, and use it themselves to overcome obstacles and become the rightful queens of their own lives.

His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy.

William Shakespeare understood power: what it is, how it works, how it is gained, and how it is lost. In The Hollow Crown, Eliot A. Cohen reveals how the battling princes of Henry IV and scheming senators of Julius Caesar can teach us to better understand power and politics today. The White House, after all, is a court—with intrigue and conflict rivaling those on the Globe's stage—as is an army, a business, or a university. And each court is full of driven characters, in all their ambition, cruelty, and humanity.

Gli scritti riuniti in questa raccolta vertono sulle funzioni della letteratura, su autori che Eco ha frequentato a lungo come Nerval, Joyce, Borges (ma anche Aristotele e Dante), sull’influenza di alcuni testi più o meno letterari sullo sviluppo degli eventi storici, su alcuni problemi tipici del narrare, come la rappresentazione verbale dello spazio, l’ironia intertestuale, la natura dei mondi possibili della finzione, e su alcuni concetti chiave della scrittura "creativa", come il simbolo, lo stile, la "zeppa" (ovvero i momenti apparentemente "morti", e meramente funzionali nello sviluppo d

While books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings beneath the surface. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the practiced analytical eye—and the literary codes—of a college professor.

Auf diesem Hörbuch werden folgende 5 Texte, die jeweils den Gegenstand Kunst auseinandersetzen und verdeutlichen zu finden sein: Der Verfall der Lüge, Stift – Gift – Schrifttum, Kritik als Kunst 1, Kritik als Kunst 2, Die Wahrheit der Masken. Text 1: Ohne Lügen wäre Kindererziehung unmöglich, ohne Lügen wären Wahrheiten unmöglich.

Marcel Proust came into his own as a novelist comparatively late in life, yet only Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky were his equals when it came to creating characters as memorably human. As biographer Benjamin Taylor suggests, Proust was a literary lightweight before writing his multivolume masterwork In Search of Lost Time, but following a series of momentous historical and personal events, he became—against all expectations—one of the greatest writers of his, and indeed any, era.

Dive deep into the intricate minds of The Witcher's characters and explore the fascinating intersection of psychology and fantasy in "The Psychology of The Witcher." Uncover the secrets behind the complex motivations and behaviors of Geralt of Rivia, Yennefer of Vengerberg, and other iconic characters in this captivating exploration of the acclaimed fantasy series.

Membering Austin Clarke reflects on the life and writing of Austin Clarke, whose depictions of Black life in Canada enlarged our understanding of what Canadian literature looks like. Despite being one of Canada's most widely published, and most richly awarded writers, Austin Clarke (1934-2016) is not a household name. This collection addresses Clarke's marginalization in Canadian literature by demonstrating that his writing on Black diasporic life and the immigrant experience is a foundational, if untold, part of the story of CanLit.

First published in 1732 by Benjamin Franklin when he was just 26, Poor Richard's Almanack was issued annually for the next 25 years. Extremely popular with readers of the day, the Almanack was a fascinating compilation of weather predictions, recipes, jokes, and delightful aphorisms — many representing Franklin's common-sense philosophy, and others, proverbs from the past.