Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

The body is a source of pleasure and of pain, at once hopelessly vulnerable and radiant with power. In her ambitious, brilliant sixth book, Olivia Laing charts an electrifying course through the long struggle for bodily freedom, using the life of the renegade psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to explore gay rights and sexual liberation, feminism, and the civil rights movement.

All six Bastable children - Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel and Horace Octavius - are ambitious adventurers, digging detectives and intrepid treasure seekers by nature. Unfortunately, the Bastable family is currently facing an uncertain financial future. When father takes ill, and his business partners abandon him, the six children team up in an effort to restore their family’s wealth. Although they devise some ingenious escapades, their efforts usually end up unprofitable but fun - and sometimes their digging gets downright dangerous.

Rediscover the "most important book on black-white relationships" in America in this special 50th anniversary edition.

Early in his career, A.J. Jacobs put his Ivy League education to work at Entertainment Weekly. He emerged five years later knowing which stars have fake boobs, which stars have toupees, which have both, and not much else. This realization led Jacobs on a life-changing quest: to read the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 33,000 pages, all 44 million words.

This is the story of the unhappy family of Anna Karenina. The novel contains much concerning Tolstoy's spiritual crisis and his search for the meaning of life. But it is also chiefly about marriage, and the growth and death of love.

After serving in the First World War, Milne wrote a number of well-received plays, but his greatest triumph came when he created Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and, of course, Christopher Robin, the adventurous little boy based on his own son. Goodbye Christopher Robin inspired the film directed by Simon Curtis and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, and Kelly Macdonald. It offers the listener a glimpse into the relationship between Milne and the real-life Christopher Robin, whose toys inspired the magical world of the Hundred Acre Wood.

In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously private writer Haruki Murakami shares with listeners his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage - to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than 70 years of great-power peace, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history.

More than 50 years after his death, revered intellectual and teacher C. S. Lewis continues to speak to booklovers, thanks not only to his intellectual insights on Christianity but also his wondrous creative works and deep reflections on the literature that influenced his life. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, The Reading Life provides guidance and reflections on the love and enjoyment of books.

Henry Miller's gifts of profundity, humor, and spiritual sensitivity as well as his joy of living are well displayed in this collection of his insights into the human character. The pieces range from the delightfully raucous to the metaphysically illuminating, and include portraits of the famous and less-than-famous people in Miller's life. All human beings become real to the listener under Miller's penetrating mind and loving eye.

Welcome to Immerse: Prophets! An Immerse Bible Reading (and listening!) Experience Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel Immerse: Chronicles is the sixth and final installment in Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience featuring the New Living Translation (NLT) Bible text. Chronicles contains the remaining First Testament Books: Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. These works were all written after the Jewish people fell under the control of foreign empires and were scattered among the nations. They remind God’s chastened people of their identity and calling to faithfully ...

How was it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women? In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines novelist Thomas Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him—mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women’s lives in the nineteenth century.

"You’re not doing it right." Michael Ian Black has been hearing these five words all his life. And now—on the eve of his 40th birthday—he is finally beginning to wonder why. As a husband and father living in the suburbs, Michael asks the questions so many of us ask ourselves at one point or another, including "How did I end up here?" The answers are painstakingly detailed in this, Michael Ian Black’s debut memoir.

Our favorite books keep us company, give us hope, and help us find meaning in a chaotic world. In this fresh and relatable work, atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan blends memoir and personal growth as she grapples with the notions of family legacy and identity through the lens of her favorite novel, Jane Eyre.

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism.

Compiled by a veteran writer of the comic series, this collection of essays explores Batman’s motivations and actions, as well as those of his foes. Batman is a creature of the night, more about vengeance than justice, more plagued by doubts than full of self-assurance, and more darkness than light. He has no superpowers, just skill, drive, and a really well-made suit.

The Oxford Inklings tells the story of the friendships, mutual influence, and common purpose of the Inklings - the literary circle which congregated around C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Meeting in pubs or Lewis' college rooms, they included an influential array of literary figures. They were, claimed poet and novelist John Wain, bent on 'the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life'. Tolkien and Lewis expert Colin Duriez unpacks the Inklings' origins, relationships, and the nature of their collaboration.

Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of Our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin's cryptic character and his unusual philosophy, providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way.

From the childhood nostalgia of Peter Pan in Speak Now to the haunted halls of Rebecca in Evermore, Taylor Swift’s lyrics are packed with literary connections. Make sure you’re catching them all with this expert guide to the novels, poems, and plays that influenced her songwriting. Let a literature professor and a musical theater artist guide you through the Swift canon—from Shakespeare to Dickinson to the Brontë sisters. Learn what “New Romantics” has to do with the old Romantics, get to know the Gothic monsters haunting Midnights, and spot Taylor’s many Great Gatsby references.

Gina Frangello spent her early adulthood trying to outrun a youth marked by poverty and violence. Now a long-married wife and devoted mother, the better life she carefully built is emotionally upended by the death of her closest friend. Soon, awakened to fault lines in her troubled marriage, Frangello is caught up in a recklessly passionate affair, leading a double life while continuing to project the image of the perfect family. When her secrets are finally uncovered, both her home and her identity will implode, testing the limits of desire, responsibility, love, and forgiveness.