ELT & Literary Studies Books

4574 products


  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    HarperCollins Publishers A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

    1 in stock

    £5.68

  • The Romantic Poets Writers in Britain S.

    Evans Publishing Group The Romantic Poets Writers in Britain S.

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis volume is part of the "Writers In Britain" series which introduces children to great literary figures. This volume examines the lives of the romantic poets, taking in Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth and considers the time in which they wrote their poetry.

    15 in stock

    £8.99

  • The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 2

    Canongate Books The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 2

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisA second volume of fascinating interviews from one of the world's best loved literary magazinesSince The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are themselves works of finely-crafted literature. From Faulkner's determination that a great novel takes 'ninety-nine percent talent . . . ninety-nine percent discipline . . . ninety-nine percent work', to Gabriel Márquez's observation that 'in the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book', The Paris Review has elicited revelatory and revealing thoughts from our most accomplished novelists, poets and playwrights. With an introduction by Orhan Pamuk, this volume brings together another rich, varied crop of literary voices, comprising: Graham Greene, James Thurber, William Faulkner, Robert Lowell, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Eudora Welty, John Gardner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Larkin, James Baldwin, William Gaddis, Harold Bloom, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Peter Carey and Stephen King. 'A colossal literary event' as Gary Shteyngart put it, The Paris Review Interviews vol. 2 is a treasury of wisdom from the world's literary masters.Trade ReviewFor writing nerds, this is nirvana. -- Colin Waters * * Sunday Herald * *Anyone with the slightest pretension a literary life needs to read this collection. * * The London Paper * *this second collection of the magazine's interviews with writers is rich in delight. -- Steven Poole * * The Guardian * *Wonderful collection dealing with the "how" of writing. -- Martin Tierney * * The Herald * *...much like its predecessor is a bull's-eye...this is a bible both for readers and writers, the insider gossip for those who are truly passionate about their prose. -- Francesca Segal * * Observer * *

    3 in stock

    £13.49

  • A-level English Text Guide - The Great Gatsby

    Coordination Group Publications Ltd (CGP) A-level English Text Guide - The Great Gatsby

    4 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis book contains everything you need to write better A-Level and Undergraduate English essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, all presented in a helpful and entertaining way to make study and revision easier. There are clear notes on the characters, themes, language techniques and critical context, plus practice questions to make sure you understand the main points. There’s also a section dedicated to writing about ‘The Great Gatsby’ to help you improve your grades.

    4 in stock

    £9.97

  • The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 4

    Canongate Books The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 4

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSince The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age. Here is the fourth collection of brilliant interviews to be gathered together, 'a bible both for readers and writers, the insider gossip for those who are truly passionate about their prose.' (Observer)This new edition is introduced by Salman Rushdie and includes interviews with:William StyronMarianne MooreEzra PoundE.B. WhiteP.G. WodehouseJohn AshberyPhilip RothMaya AngelouOrhan PamukV.S. NaipaulStephen SondheimHaruki MurakamiDavid GrossmanMarilynne RobinsonTrade ReviewIndispensable reading for anybody interested in how writers work and why writing continues to work. * * Daily Telegraph * *If you want to get acquainted with your favourite writer, you could go to a reading or a book-signing. But to really know them, you should read a Paris Review interview. * * The Times * *I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than 'why'. -- Salman RushdieAn embarrassment of big names...As an insight into what the most famous writers of the last 50 years would like you to think of them, the Paris Review Interviews have many charms beside their illustrious roll-call. * * Prospect * *The greatest hits of the earlier series, as well as providing a more durable and accessible home for recent interviews....the interviewees are engaging anecdotalists and autobiographers. * * Observer * *A kind of a masterclass for aspiring writers. * * London Review of Books * *The Paris Review interviews have always provided the best look into the minds and work ethics of great writers and when read together constitute the closest thing to an MFA that you can get while sitting alone on your couch. -- Dave EggersThis is a delight. * * GQ * *The final volume of The Paris Review Interviews has just been published and writers can once again be reminded that we are not the first to have ridiculous ambitions, doubts and difficulties. The four volumes together will make a generous gift for anyone who writes or reads. One volume would be not too shabby either. -- Peter Carey * * Guardian * *

    1 in stock

    £13.49

  • Come On In!: New Poems

    Canongate Books Come On In!: New Poems

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisBukowski's unmistakable charisma - an ex-down-and-outer who wrote of booze and loneliness in maverick, confident free verse - made him one of the world's most popular poets long before he died in 1994. More than a decade later, death has not slowed his production. This collection is selected from an archive of verse that the author left to be published after his death. It includes poems of love and sex, advice to so-called losers (as he once was) to have confidence in themselves (as he did), gambling laments and humbling poems accepting his own imminent ultimate full stop.Trade ReviewThe thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right. * * Sean Penn * *We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up? * * Billy Collins * *Full of sad, hilarious lamentation and schadenfreude. As usual, not for the kiddies. But for the adults, God, yes. * * Booklist * *In an age of conformity Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad. * * Observer * *A laureate of American low life. * * Time * *

    2 in stock

    £13.49

  • Train To Pakistan

    Penguin Random House India Train To Pakistan

    2 in stock

    Book Synopsis"Train to Pakistan" explores religious hate during Partition through a Sikh-Muslim love story in Mano Majra. Communal tensions escalate, leading to violence and betrayal. Juggut Singh and Iqbal face false accusations amidst chaos and a tragic evacuation attempt.

    2 in stock

    £13.99

  • The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 3

    Canongate Books The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 3

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSince The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are themselves works of finely-crafted literature. The magazine has spoken with most of the world's leading novelists, poets and playwrights, and the interviews themselves have come to be recognised as classic words of literature in their own right. The series as a whole is indispensable for all writers and readers.This new volume in the series builds on the success and acclaim of the first two editions. The interviews:Ralph Ellison (1955)Georges Simenon (1955)Isak Dineson (1956)Evelyn Waugh (1963)William Carlos Williams (1964)Harold Pinter (1966)John Cheever (1976)Joyce Carol Oates (1978)Jean Rhys (1979)Raymond Carver (1983)Chinua Achebe (1994)Ted Hughes (1995)Jan Morris (1997)Martin Amis (1998)Salman Rushdie (2005)Norman Mailer (2007)Trade ReviewIndispensable reading for anybody interested in how writers work and why writing continues to work. * * Daily Telegraph * *If you want to get acquainted with your favourite writer, you could go to a reading or a book-signing. But to really know them, you should read a Paris Review interview. * * The Times * *I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than 'why'. * * Salman Rushdie * *For writing nerds, this is nirvana. -- Colin Waters * * Sunday Herald * *Anyone with the slightest pretension a literary life needs to read this collection. * * The London Paper * *this second collection [The Paris Review Interviews vol. 2] of the magazine's interviews with writers is rich in delight. -- Steven Poole * * Guardian * *...much like its predecessor is a bull's-eye...this is a bible both for readers and writers, the insider gossip for those who are truly passionate about their prose [vol. 2]. -- Francesca Segal * * Observer * *I have read all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review. * * Ernest Hemingway * *The Paris Review is the finest literary magazine of the moment, a great contradiction of the prevailing gloom over the status of literature in contemporary life, and its arrival in these islands is an event that calls for loud hurrahs. * * John Banville * *The distinguished reputation of The Paris Review's long-standing series of interviews with writers is upheld in this volume. * * Daily Telegraph * *

    1 in stock

    £13.49

  • East of Eden

    Penguin Putnam Inc East of Eden

    Out of stock

    Book Synopsis

    Out of stock

    £18.70

  • The Smoking Diaries Volume 3: The Last Cigarette

    Granta Books The Smoking Diaries Volume 3: The Last Cigarette

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisThe final volume of the trilogy that began with The Smoking Diaries finds Simon Gray determined to give up smoking. Really. At last. Can he kick the habit of sixty years? Will he, sometime soon, be able to leave his house without nervously feeling for his two packets of twenty and his two lighters? As this wonderful, wayward record of Gray's life progresses, these questions are overtaken by much larger ones. What was sex like before 1963? Will his name be in lights on Broadway? Why leave the bedside of his dying mother? With their combination of comedy and serious reflection, of sharp observation and painful self-disclosure, Simon Gray's diaries reinvented the memoir form and are destined to become classics of autobiography.Trade Review"- 'A new volume of diaries from Simon Gray is always a rare treat' Evening Standard -'A great achievement, a terrific read, every page crammed with jokes, philosophical observations... Volume III is keenly awaited' Lloyd Evans, Spectator - 'His apparently spontaneous, but I suspect meticulously crafted journals are highly addictive, often wildly funny but also, and this is increasingly the case, deeply moving.... they are works of rare honesty, humanity and wit that are surely destined to be read with pleasure a hundred years from now' Sunday Telegraph - '**** There are few things more enjoyable than reading the diaries of Simon Gray... (they) are very, very, funny.' - Irish mail on Sunday"

    Out of stock

    £7.59

  • Lancelot-Grail: 8. The Post Vulgate Cycle. The

    Boydell & Brewer Ltd Lancelot-Grail: 8. The Post Vulgate Cycle. The

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe Post-Vulgate Cycle reworks the Vulgate Cycle from the end of The Story of Merlin. The sequel opens with Arthur's unwitting incest with his sister, and his establishment, with Merlin's help, of his title to the kingdom. The story of the events leading up to the Dolorous Blow is then recounted, as well as its consequences. A sequence of adventures follows, largely involving Gawain and his brothers; Lancelot appears only at the end of the continuation, as does Perceval, whose story concludes the romance. For a full description of the Post-Vulgate Cycle see the blurb for the complete set.

    15 in stock

    £31.99

  • Home And Exile

    Canongate Books Home And Exile

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisThis trenchant and illuminating book by one of Africa's most influential and celebrated writers is a major statement on the importance and dangers of stories, one in which Achebe makes telling use of his personal experiences to examine the political nature of culture and specifically literature.It is the weaving of the personal into the bigger picture that makes Home and Exile so remarkable and affecting. It's the closest we are likely to get by way of Achebe's autobiography but it is also a brilliantly argued critique of imperialism. Achebe challenges the way the West has appropriated Africa with a particular emphasis on how 'imperialist' literature has been used to justify its dispossession and degradation.Above all this is a book that articulates persuasively why literature matters. Stories are a real source of power in the world, Achebe concludes, and to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away.Trade ReviewThe value of Achebe's book is . . . to insist that literature matters. * * Financial Times * *A moving account of an exceptional life . . . Achebe reveals the inner workings of the human conscience through the predicament of Africa and his own intellectual life . . . A story of the triumph of the mind, told in the words of one of the century's most gifted writers. -- Henry Louis Gates JrA book that anyone concerned with advancing social justice and human dignity should read. * * Seattle Times * *In defining the dignity and vibrancy of African literature, Chinua Achebe defies the stranglehold of colonial, imperialist and cultural dispossession. He brings us into balance with a world of literature and hope that the West with its myth of primacy denies. -- Walter Mosley

    Out of stock

    £9.49

  • Three Modern Italian Poets Saba Ungaretti Montale

    The University of Chicago Press Three Modern Italian Poets Saba Ungaretti Montale

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFocusing on the most recent triad of Italian poetic genius--Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, and Eugenio Montale--Joseph Cary guides us through the first few decades of twentieth-century Italy.

    15 in stock

    £26.60

  • Ten Novels And Their Authors

    Vintage Publishing Ten Novels And Their Authors

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisWilliam Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965Trade ReviewThe modern writer who has influenced me most -- George OrwellA brilliant entertainer * New York Times *

    1 in stock

    £11.69

  • Desiring Arabs

    The University of Chicago Press Desiring Arabs

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisSexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. This title reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. It assembles a compendium of Arabic writing to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization.Trade Review"A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic.... I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work." - Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report "In Desiring Arabs, Edward Said's disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor's thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing.... Massad brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present." - Financial Times"

    3 in stock

    £19.00

  • Theories of Africans Francophone Literature and

    The University of Chicago Press Theories of Africans Francophone Literature and

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisSituating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. . . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis. Y. Mudimbe

    15 in stock

    £28.50

  • The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of

    University of Chicago Press The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisExamining a variety of works, from revenge plays to Shakespeare's first history tetralogy and beyond, the author explores how this title not only exposed the faultlines of society on stage but also provoked playgoers in the audience to acknowledge all the differences they shared with one another.Trade Review"The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare is a powerful and provocative meditation on the innovative cultural forms and emotional processes that emerged from the violent affective dislocations of memory, identity, and community of the English Reformation. Mullaney addresses issues of wide interest among scholars of early modern literature and culture through evocative readings of both familiar and unfamiliar plays that are consistently surprising, insightful, and original." (William N. West, Northwestern University)

    10 in stock

    £39.03

  • Katherine Parr

    The University of Chicago Press Katherine Parr

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisTo the extent that she is popularly known, Katherine Parr (1512-48) is the woman who survived King Henry VIII as his sixth and last wife. The author assembles the four publications attributed to her - Psalms or Prayers, Prayers or Meditations, The Lamentation of a Sinner, and a compilation of prayers and Biblical excerpts written in her hand.Trade Review"Here we have one of Henry VIII's queens-the one who survived him-in her own words, making laws as regent of England, writing confessional prayers or short childish notes as a little girl.... Katherine Parr is one of the lesser known of Henry's wives, far from the dramatic triangle of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, but this collection of her writings will remind historians that Parr was an extraordinary woman of letters and passions." (Los Angeles Times) "A testament to a remarkable woman, whose learning and character speak powerfully to us across the centuries." (Literary Review)"

    15 in stock

    £41.80

  • General Introduction to Persian Literature: History of Persian Literature A, Vol I

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC General Introduction to Persian Literature: History of Persian Literature A, Vol I

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisPersian literature is the jewel in the crown of Persian culture. It has profoundly influenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India and Turkic Central Asia and been a source of inspiration for Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Jorge Luis Borges among others. Yet Persian literature has never received the attention it truly deserves."A History of Persian Literature" answers this need and offers a new, comprehensive and detailed history of its subject. This 18-volume, authoritative survey reflects the stature and significance of Persian literature as the single most important accomplishment of the Iranian experience. It includes extensive, revealing examples with contributions by prominent scholars who bring a fresh critical approach to bear on this important topic.The first volume offers an indispensable entree to Persian literature's long and rich history, examining themes and subjects that are common to many fields of Persian literary study. This invaluable introduction to the subject heralds a definitive and ground-breaking new series.Table of ContentsForeword Chapter 1: Classical Persia n Literature as a Tradition (J. T. P. de Bruijn) 1. Preliminary Remarks 2. Documentation 3. The Birth of a Tradition 4. Writers, Poets, Minstrels and Patrons Writers Poets Minstrels Patronage Alternatives to Court Poetry 5. Religious Inspiration 6. The Transmission of Literature 7. The Individuality of the Writer and the Poet 8. Views on Poetry CHAPTER 2: THE OR IGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LITER ARY PERS IAN (J. Perry) 1. The Fall of Middle Persian and the Rise of Persian 2. The Language Arena, ca. 570-900 3. Pârsi and Dari 4. Arabic and Persian: A Fortunate Conjunction 5. Building a Literary Language 6. Expansion and Standardization 7. Classical Persian Chap er 3: the history of literature (W. Hanaway) Chap ter 4: Prosody : mete r and rhyme (B. Utas) 1. Meter in Persian Poetry 2. Rhyme in Persian Poetry 3. The Pre-Islamic Prosodic Heritage 4. Khalil’s Analysis of Arabic Metrics 5. The Persian Version of the aruz System 6. Scansion 7. Caesura 8. Pitch and Stress 9. Special Features of Persian Rhyme and Verse Forms 10. The robâ’i and the Prosody of Folk Poetry 11. The Role of Meter and Rhyme in PersianPoetical Genres Chapter 5: Traditional Literary Theory: The Arabic Backg round (G. J. Van Gelder) . . . . 1. Arabic Theory and Persian Literature 2. Origins and Early Developments 3. The Scholastic Study of balâgha 4. From Arabic Legacy to Persian Theory 5. The Deficiencies of Arabic Theory Chapter 6: Persian Rhetoric: Elme badi ’and elme bayân (N. Chalisova) 1. The Persian Theory of Rhetoric Embellishment 2. Râduyâni’s Tarjomân al-balâgha 3. Vatvât’s Hadâ’eq al-sehr 4. Shamse Qeys’ Mo’jam 5. The qaside-ye masnu’ 6. Commentaries of the Hadâ’eq 7. Hoseyni’s Badâye’ al-sanâye’ 8. Postclassical Treatises 9. Concluding Remarks Chapter 7: Poetic Imagery (R. Zipoli) Inventory of Persian Poetic Imagery The Natural World Animals Plants and Flowers Precious Substances The Sky, Planets, Stars, and Constellations Other Natural Elements Colors The Measurement of Time The Human World The Body Other Bodily Components Actions and Emotions The Social Context Life at Court War Feasting Games Hunting Fabrics and clothes Perfumes and cosmetics Wounds and medicine Various objects Writing Numbers Characters Places around the Court Countries and Peoples The Cultural Tradition Islam Characters and Motifs Mentioned in the Qor’an Other Characters from the Qor’an Other Characters and Motifs from Islamic Culture Ritual Elements Ancient Persian Traditions Flouting Islamic Values Chapter 8: Genres of Court Literature J. Meisami) Introduction 2. Panegyric and Related Types of Poetry 3. “Informal” Lyrics 4. History 5. Epic and Romance 6. Wisdom Literature; Mirrors for Princes 7. Didactic, Religious and Philosophical Poetry and Prose 8. Epistolography and Works on Style 9. Satire and Humorous Writing 10. Conclusion Chapter 9: Genres of Religious Literature N. Pourjavady) 1. Commentaries on the Qor’an and Stories of the Prophets 2. Manuals 3. Short Works on Mystical States and Stages nd on Spiritual Conduct 4. Hagiographies 5. Sermons 6. Allegories 7. Treatises on Love 8. Didactic and Theoretical Works in Prose 9. Didactic Mathnavis Chapter 10: Ri ddles (G. Windfuhr) 1. Pre-Islamic Period 2. The Islamic Period 3. Loghaz and mo’ammâ 4. Indigenous Tradition and Scholarship 5. Modern Scholarship 6. The Theory of the mo’ammâ 7. Hesabe abjad 8. Târikh 9. The Gnostic-Mystical Factor Appendix Chapter 11: Pre-Islamic Iranian and Indian Influences on Persian Literature (F. de Blois) . 1. Kalile and Demne 2. The Book of Kings 3. The Book of Sendbâd 4. Belawhar and Budhâsaf 5. Vis and Râmin 6. The Letter of Tansar Chapter 12: Hell enistic Influences in Classical Persia n L

    15 in stock

    £123.50

  • The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives

    Peepal Tree Press Ltd The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe short story has been integral to the development of Caribbean literature, and continues to offer possibilities for invention and reinvigoration. As the most comprehensive study of its kind, this important and timely volume explores the significance of the short story form to Caribbean cultural production across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The twenty original essays collected here offer a unique set of inquiries and insights into the historical, cultural and stylistic characteristics of Caribbean short story writing. The book draws together diverse critical perspectives from established and emerging scholars, including Shirley Chew, Alison Donnell, James Procter, Raymond Ramcharitar and Elaine Savory. Essays cover the publishing histories of specific islands; intersections of the local, global and diasporic; treatments of race and gender; language, orality and genre; and cultural contexts from tourism to calypso to cricket.Mark McWatt is the recently retired Professor of West Indian literature at UWI, Cave Hill. He is joint editor of the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse(2005).The EditorsDr Lucy Evans is Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature at the University of Leicester. She has published a number of articles on Caribbean and black British writing, and is currently completing a monograph entitled Communities in Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories.Emma Smith has a PhD in narrative theory and contemporary fiction from the University of Leeds. She has lectured in post/colonial literature and history at Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan universities and currently works on the editorial team at Peepal Tree.

    15 in stock

    £16.99

  • The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges Library of Babel

    Oxford University Press Inc The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges Library of Babel

    15 in stock

    Trade Review"Mr. Bloch, professor of mathematics at Wheaton College, has woven an elegant, ingenious, scholarly interpretation of Borges's text that contradicts the disingenuous 'unimaginable' of his title."--New York Sun "For the reader of Borges, some of Bloch's observations may offer a useful new way of engaging with the themes of the fiction." -- American Scientist "You need no advanced mathematics to understand 'The Library of Babel' but chances are good that if you like the story, you'll enjoy Professor Bloch's excursions." -- Mathematical Association of America Review "Given Borges' well-known affection for mathematics, this exploration of the story through the eyes of a humanistic mathematician makes a unique and important contribution to the body of Borgesian criticism. Bloch not only illuminates one of the great short stories of modern literature, but also exposes the reader - including those more inclined to the literary world - to many intriguing and entrancing mathematical ideas."--Mathematical ReviewsTable of ContentsPreface ; Introduction ; Combinatorics: Contemplating Variations of the 23 Letter ; Topology and Cosmology: The Universe (Which Others Call the Library) ; Information Theory: Cataloging the Collection ; Geometry and Graph Theory: Ambiguity and Access ; Real Analysis: The Book of Sand ; More Combinatorics: Disorderings into Order ; A Homomorphism: Structure into Meaning ; Critical Points ; Openings ; Acknowledgements ; Appendix IThe Logos of Logarithms ; Appendix IIFlat-Out Disoriented ; Appendix IIIPeeling the 3-Sphere ; Appendix IVA Labyrinth, not a Maze ; Appendix VAn Example of the Ars Combinatoria ; Bibliography

    15 in stock

    £24.69

  • On Writing Short Stories

    Oxford University Press Inc On Writing Short Stories

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisOn Writing Short Stories, Second Edition, explores the art and craft of writing short fiction by bringing together nine original essays by professional writers and thirty-three examples of short fiction. The first section features original essays by well-known authors--including Francine Prose, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andre Dubus--that guide students through the process of writing. Focusing on the characteristics and craft of the short story and its writer, these essays take students from the workshopping process all the way through to the experience of working with agents and publishers. The second part of the text is an anthology of stories--many referred to in the essays--that give students dynamic examples of technique brought to life.In this second edition, author-editor Tom Bailey brings the text up-to-date with new and revised essays, alongside classic pieces by Robert Coles and Frank Conroy and a foreword by Tobias Wolff.New to This Edition* Includes new and revised essays: Two Table of ContentsForeword by Tobias Wolff ; Preface ; Contributors ; Part One: On Writing Short Stories ; Francine Prose, What Makes a Short Story ; Joyce Carol Oates, Reading as a Writer: The Artist as Craftsman ; Tom Bailey, Character, Plot, Setting and Time, Metaphor, and Voice ; The Voice of Desire: Character ; The Why? Behind the Power of Plot: Shaping the Short Story ; The Lesser Angels of Fiction: Setting and Time ; "The Connectedness of All Living Things": Metaphor ; The Writer's Signature: Voice ; Frank Conroy, The Writer's Workshop ; Antonya Nelson. Whose Story Is It? The Anonymous Workshop ; Robert Boswell After the Workshop: Transitional Drafts ; Andre Dubus, The Habit of Writing. ; Robert Cole, Why Write? Taking on the World ; C. Michael Curtis, Publishers and Publishing ; Part Two: Short Stories ; Guy de Maupassant, The String ; Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog ; James Joyce, Eveline ; Yukio Mishima, Patriotism ; Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants ; Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing ; William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily ; John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums ; Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl ; Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge ; John Updike, A & P ; Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings ; Joyce Carol Oates, Heat ; Raymond Carver, Cathedral ; Mark Helprin, North Light ; Jayne Anne Phillips, Wedding Picture, Cheers, Stripper, and The Powder of the Angles, and I'm Yours ; Ron Hansen, Wickedness ; David Leavitt, Braids ; Jumpha Lahiri, A Temporary Matter ; Tom Franklin, Alaska ; Junot Diaz, Nilda ; Rick Bass, The Fireman ; Tom Bailey, Snow Dreams ; Susan Perabo, The Payoff ; Robert Boswell, The Darkness of Love ; ZZ Packer, Brownies ; Andre Dubus, A Father's Story ; Antonya Nelson, Dick ; Susan Mino, Lust ; Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain

    15 in stock

    £39.99

  • The Owl the Raven and the Dove

    Oxford University Press The Owl the Raven and the Dove

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm are among the best known and most widely-read stories in western literature. In recent years commentators such as Bruno Bettelheim have, usually from a psychological perspective, pondered the underlying meaning of the stories, why children are so enthralled by them, and what effect they have on the developing child. In this book, Ronald Murphy takes five of the best-known tales (Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty) and shows that the Grimms saw them as Christian fables. Murphy examines the arguments of previous interpreters of the tales, and demonstrates how they missed the Grimms'' intention. His own readings of the five so-called magical tales reveal them as the beautiful and inspiring documents of faith that the Grimms meant them to be. Offering an entirely new perspective on these often-analyzed tales, Murphy''s book will appeal to those concerned with the moral and religious educatioTrade ReviewMurphy had done the Brothers Grimm a great service ... But he has done more than that. He has brought home to us the essentially hospitable nature of the stories ... admirable. The TabletMurphy has added several dazzling layers of meaning to the tales. * First Things *

    15 in stock

    £33.14

  • Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran:

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran:

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisI.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation Iran's rich cultural heritage has been shaped over many centuries by its rich and eventful history. This impressive book, which assembles contributions by some of the world's most eminent historians, art historians and other scholars of the Iranian world, explores the history of the country through the prism of Persian literature, art and culture. The result is a seminal work which illuminates important, yet largely neglected, aspects of Medieval and Early Modern Iran and the Middle East. Its scope, from the era of Ferdowsi, Iran's national epic poet and the author of the Shahnameh to the period of the Mongols, Timurids, Safavids, Zands and Qajars, examines the interaction between mythology, history, historiography, poetry, painting and craftwork in the long narrative of the Persianate experience. As such, Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran is essential reading and a reference point for students and scholars of Iranian history, Persian literature and the arts of the Islamic World.Table of Contents1. Charles Melville and Persian Pembroke. Miguel Kuczynski STUDIES ON HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY Iran and the Ancient World 2. On the Epithets of Two Sasanian Kings in the Mujmal al-Tawarikh wa-l-Qisas. Touraj Daryaee 3. The Changing Face of an Iranian Sacred Place: The Takht-i Sulayman. Josef Wiesehöfer 4. Legitimating Greece. Lynette Mitchell History and Historiography in the Early Islamic East 5. Between Persian Legend and Samanid Orthodoxy: Accounts about Gayumarth in Bal‘ami’s Tarikhnama. Maria Subtelny 6. Recent Contributions to the History of the Early Ghaznavids and Seljuqs. Edmund Bosworth 7. Idris ‘Imad al-Din and Medieval Ismaili Historiography. Farhad Daftary 8. The Kimiya-yi sa‘adat (The Alchemy of Happiness) of al-Ghazali: A Misunderstood Work? Carole Hillenbrand 9. ‘Help Me If You Can!’ An Analysis of a Letter Sent by the Last Seljuq Sultan of Kirman David Durand-Guédy 10. Imad al-Din al-Isfahani’s Nusrat al-fatra, Seljuq Politics and Ayyubid Origins. A.C.S. Peacock 11. The Rise and Fall of a Tyrant in Seljuq Anatolia: Sa‘d al-Din Köpek’s Reign of Terror, 1237-8. Sara Nur Y?ld?z Mongol Iran and its neighbours 12. ‘It is as if their aim were the extermination of the species’: The Mongol Devastation in Western Asia in the First Half of the Thirteenth Century. Peter Jackson 13. Juvayni’s Historical Consciousness. Beatrice Forbes Manz 14. Persian and Non-Persian Historical Writing in the Mongol Empire. David Morgan 15. Ruling from Tents: Some Remarks on Women’s Ordos in Ilkhanid Iran. Bruno de Nicola 16. Mamluks, Franks and Mongols: A Necessary but Impossible Triangle. Reuven Amitai 17. Protecting Private Property vs. Negotiating Political Authority: Nur al-Din b. Jaja and his Endowments in Thirteenth-Century Anatolia. Judith Pfeiffer Nomads, Rulers and Historians after the Mongols 18. The Mongol Puppet Lords and the Qarawnas. Michele Bernardini 19. Remarks on Steppe Nomads and Merchants. Thomas T. Allsen 20. Loyalty, Betrayal and Retribution: Biktash Khan, Ya‘qub Khan and Shah ‘Abbas I’s Strategy in Establishing Control over Kirman, Yazd and Fars. Rudi Matthee 21. Reading Safavid and Mughal Chronicles: Kingly Virtues and Early Modern Persianate Historiography. Sholeh A. Quinn British views of Qajar Iran 22. Sir John Malcolm and the Idea of Iran. Ali M. Ansari 23. Edward Granville Browne amongst the Qalandars. Jan Just Witkam STUDIES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE Literary Culture in the Persianate world 24. From Zulaykha to Zuleika Dobson: The Femme Fatale and her Ordeals in Persian Literature and Beyond. Firuza Abdullaeva 25. A Pictorial Aetiology of Ferdowsi as a Transcendent Poet. Olga Davidson 26. The Armenian Poet Frik and his Verses on Arghun Khan and Bugha. Theo van Lint 27. An Epic for Shah ‘Abbas. Gabrielle van den Berg The Theory and Practice of Persian verse 28. A Note on Form and Substance in Classical Persian Poetry. Homa Katouzian 29. Stringing Replica Pearls: Translations of Persian Verse into Verse. Barbara Brend PERSIAN AND ISLAMIC ART Aspects of Religion 30. The Prophet Muhammad’s Footprint. Christiane Gruber 31. Non-Islamic Faiths in the Edinburgh Biruni Manuscript. Robert Hillenbrand 32. A Tale of Two Minbars: Woodwork in Egypt and Syria on the Eve of the Ayyubids. Bernard O’Kane The Arts of the Book 33. Illuminating Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh. Sheila Canby 34. Rethinking Persian Painting: The Silsila of Sultan Muhammad. Layla S. Diba 35. Composite Figures in the Hadiqat al-haqiqa wa Shari‘at al-tariqa of Sana’i. Francis Richard 36. A Medieval Representation of Kay Khusraw’s jam-i giti namay. Marianna Shreve Simpson 37. The ?uraqqa‘ Album of the Zand period (PNS 383) in the National Library of Russia. Olga Vasilyeva and Olga Yastrebova 38. Interrogating Marks in a Persian Painting from Fifteenth-Century Herat: A Note. Barbara Bre

    1 in stock

    £123.50

  • Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory

    University of Washington Press Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisConsiders the intellectual renaissance at the close of the 17th century that caused the shift in the portrayals and perceptions of mountains in prose and poetry, from ugly protuberances to glorious heights. Examines various writers from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and traces both the causesTable of ContentsForeword by William CrononPrefaceIntroductionThe Literary HeritageThe Tehological DilemmaNew PhilosophyThe Geological DilemmaA Sacred Theory of the EarthThe Burnet ControversyThe Aesthetics of the InfiniteA New Descriptive PoetryEpilogueIndex

    2 in stock

    £25.19

  • Body Sweats

    MIT Press Ltd Body Sweats

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe first major collection of poetry written in English by the flabbergasting and flamboyant Baroness Elsa, “the first American Dada.”As a neurasthenic, kleptomaniac, man-chasing proto-punk poet and artist, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven left in her wake a ripple that is becoming a rip—one hundred years after she exploded onto the New York art scene. As an agent provocateur within New York's modernist revolution, “the first American Dada” not only dressed and behaved with purposeful outrageousness, but she set an example that went well beyond the eccentric divas of the twenty-first century, including her conceptual descendant, Lady Gaga.Her delirious verse flabbergasted New Yorkers as much as her flamboyant persona. As a poet, she was profane and playfully obscene, imagining a farting God, and transforming her contemporary Marcel Duchamp into M'ars (my arse). With its ragged edges and atonal rhythms, her poetry echoes the noise

    1 in stock

    £49.06

  • Glass And God

    Vintage Publishing Glass And God

    7 in stock

    Book SynopsisAnne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living. Her awards and honours include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, the T.S. Eliot Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the MacArthur Genius' Award.Trade ReviewAnne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer. Both in poetry and in prose (and the nimble mixtures of both that are characteristic of her work) she offers and upholds exceptional pleasures and standards. A unique figure in the North American literary landscape and not nearly as well known as she should be -- Susan SontagAnne Carson's poems are like notes made in their pristine urgency, as fresh and bright as a series of sudden remarks... A real poet whose poems are unfailingly memorable... [whose] powers of invention are apparently infinite -- Guy DavenportAnne Carson is a new and brilliant talent making her English debut with this volume -- Peter PorterShe is a rare talent - brilliant and full of wit, passionate and also deeply moving. Her long poem 'The Glass Essay' is oen of the best of our time -- Michael Ondaatje

    7 in stock

    £13.50

  • Vienna Is Different: Jewish Writers in Austria

    Berghahn Books Vienna Is Different: Jewish Writers in Austria

    Out of stock

    Book Synopsis Assessing the impact of fin-de-siècle Jewish culture on subsequent developments in literature and culture, this book is the first to consider the historical trajectory of Austrian-Jewish writing across the 20th century. It examines how Vienna, the city that stood at the center of Jewish life in the Austrian Empire and later the Austrian nation, assumed a special significance in the imaginations of Jewish writers as a space and an idea. The author focuses on the special relationship between Austrian-Jewish writers and the city to reveal a century-long pattern of living in tension with the city, experiencing simultaneously acceptance and exclusion, feeling “unheimlich heimisch” (eerily at home) in Vienna.Trade Review “This thoroughly researched, lucid book offers a broad, insightful discussion of a complex subject. Steven Beller is Herzog's immediate scholarly predecessor, yet Herzog goes beyond the excellent work of her predecessors…Her choices of the writings to discuss are thoughtful and sometimes unexpected…Posing challenging questions while keeping the city always in view, Herzog concludes that though this rich tapestry of artists and viewpoints is irreducible, there are similarities and verities to reveal. This is the book's unique contribution. Highly recommended.” • Choice “The strength of Vienna is Different lies in its combination of historical contextualization with individual case studies…[It] constitutes an informative guide to the continuities in Austrian Jewish literature during the long twentieth century and will be an excellent handbook for students in the field.” • Modern Language Review “This work is on the cutting edge of renewed interest in Jewish Austria. It is a comprehensive road map of a culture uprooted but replanted and blossoming anew into the twenty-first century. This is recommended reading for the scholar of Austrian literary history.” • Journal of Austrian Studies “Herzog’s book is an excellent study of Viennese Jewish writers—one that not only provides an excellent overview for use in the classroom, but that is also a fine piece of scholarship that reveals how “Vienna is different” from other European metropolises in the fascinating ways its contemporary Jewish authors reference the city’s vibrant literary tradition and cultural legacy.” • Austrian History Yearbook “It is worth noting that Herzog gives the reader the necessary historical background to each chapter and sets her writers in their historical contexts. Furthermore, each writer is introduced with a short biographical background on their life and work…In addition to being a well-written and well-constructed book, Herzog’s study contributes not only to our understanding of the tradition of the Austrian-Jewish literature but also reminds us some of its forgotten protagonists, among them Felix Salten, the author of Bambi, a work whose fame far outstrips its author’s.” • European History Quarterly “In tracing a tradition of Jewish writing in Vienna from the fin de siècle to the present, Herzog's book forms an important contribution to our understanding of Austrian literature and culture of the twentieth century. By focusing her analyses on the ways in which these writers conceptualized their identities as Jews, Herzog illuminates the complicated, yet continually changing relationships between Jewish writers and the city of Vienna.” • H-Judaic “…meticulously researched and clearly presented…Each chapter begins with a brief, well-informed overview of the period and the experiences of Jews in Austria during that time…This informative work successfully probes the engagement of an impressive range of writers with both their own self-identifications and Vienna. Sensitive and nuanced, it will serve scholars and others as the go-to guide for exploring issues of Jewishness in Austrian literature.” • Habsburg, H-Net Reviews “[A]n impressive account of the origins and development of what is now a tradition of Jewish writers in Vienna. The author does a very good job of presenting the very large subject she has taken on and of putting the turn-of-the-century writers within a chronological context that brings out how a ‘tradition’ of Jewish writers in Vienna has developed over the last century…This is an impressive contribution, with a welcome approach.” • Steven Beller, Washington D.C. “[A]n important, extremely well constructed and original inquiry and a major contribution to scholarship on Jewish writing and its authors’ literary reactions to the Austrian capital... In a systematic approach and within the proper historical context Herzog uncovers the panorama of Jewish-Austrian writing with Vienna as its focus…Comprehensive and thorough, it conveys a wealth of information on individual authors, their time, and the changing cultural environment.” • Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, University of Illinois at ChicagoTable of Contents Introduction The Historical Continuity of the Viennese Jewish Experience Chapter 1. The Fin de Siècle The Jewish Immigrant Experience in Vienna The Jewish Confrontation with a New Political Climate Jewish Cultural Responses Arthur Schnitzler Adolf Dessauer Felix Salten Stefan Zweig Hugo von Hofmannsthal Karl Kraus Theodor Herzl Richard Beer-Hofmann Conclusion Chapter 2. Jewish Vienna Between the World Wars Jewish Identity and World War I A New Jewish Identity Crisis Rising Anti-Semitism The Beginning of the End Jews and the Anschluss Jewish Cultural Responses in the Interwar Years Arthur Schnitzler Felix Salten Stefan Zweig Joseph Roth Karl Kraus Hugo Bettauer Elias Canetti Veza Canetti Conclusion Chapter 3. Jews and the Second Republic The Immediate Postwar Situation The Second Republic Austrian Jews and the Second Republic Jewish Identity after 1945 Ilse Aichinger Friedrich Torberg Hilde Spiel Conclusion Chapter 4. Viennese Jews from Waldheim to Haider and Beyond The Waldheim Affair Jewish Writers and Vienna after Waldheim Contemporary Viennese Jewish Writing Ruth Beckermann Robert Schindel Doron Rabinovici Robert Menasse Eva Menasse Elfriede Jelinek Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography

    Out of stock

    £26.55

  • A Commentary on Virgil Eclogues

    Clarendon Press A Commentary on Virgil Eclogues

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisSurprising though it may seem, this is the first full-scale scholarly commentary in English on Virgil''s Eclogues. Written between about 42 and 35 BC, these ten short pastorals are among the best known poems in Latin literature. They have inspired numerous poets - Sidney, Ronsard, and others - and at the same time have held enduring fascination among scholars for their sophistaicated and allusive blend of Theocritean idyll and contemporary Roman history. Professor Clausen''s commentary will provide a comprehensive guide to the poems and the considerable scholarship surrounding them, and should be indispensable to all serious students of Virgil''s poetry. Special attention is paid throughout the commentary to the important question of Virgil''s use of Theocritus and other Hellenistic poets, with translations provided of all Greek passages. There are many new and illuminating observations on Virgil''s poetic style and vocabulary, often with reference to his Latin predecessors: Lucretius,Trade Reviewhas been long awaited and has much to offer. On matters of Latinity and details of interpretation he is clear and cogent; particularly welcome is the use made of Plautus and Lucretius...The book shows a feeling for poetry and nature that makes it a worthy companion to Mynors's Georgics. * R.G.M.Nisbet, Corpus Christi College, Oxford *Clausen does indeed supplement existing commentaries in some valuable ways, and serious Vergilian scholars will certainly want to avail themselves of this new resource. * The Classical Journal *This is a full and scholarly commentary of the old-fashioned kind (in the best sense of the word!), in fact "surprisingly, the first full scale scholarly eommentary in English on the Eclogues"....This is certainly an important and necessary book for the teacher and university student.. * JACT review *

    15 in stock

    £31.94

  • Greek Tragedies 1

    The University of Chicago Press Greek Tragedies 1

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisOffers translations of Euripides' "Medea", "The Children of Heracles", "Andromache", and "Iphigenia among the Taurians", fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles' "The Trackers". In this title, introductions for each play offer information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond.

    2 in stock

    £12.00

  • Witches and Jesuits

    Oxford University Press Witches and Jesuits

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn his Pulitzer prize-winning 1993 book Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills showed how the Gettysburg Address revolutionized the conception of modern America. In Witches and Jesuits, Wills again focuses on a single document to open up a window on an entire society. He begins with a simple question: If Macbeth is such a great tragedy, why do performances of it so often fail? After all, the stage history of Macbeth is so riddled with disasters that it has created a legendary curse on the drama. Superstitious actors try to evade the curse by referring to Macbeth only as the Scottish play, but production after production continues to soar in its opening scenes, only to sputter towards anticlimax in the later acts. By critical consensus there seems to have been only one entirely successful modern performance of the play, Laurence Olivier''s in 1955, and even Olivier twisted his ankle on opening night. But Olivier''s ankle notwithstanding, Wills maintains that the fault lies not in ShakespearTrade ReviewA lively and provocative read... makes `Macbeth' come alive as a play. * New York Times *

    15 in stock

    £14.84

  • Lady Gregorys Toothbrush

    Pan Macmillan Lady Gregorys Toothbrush

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisColm Tóibín's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both thought and deed, actively championing causes close to her heart. At once conservative and radical in her beliefs, she saw no conflict in idealizing and mythologizing the Irish peasantry, for example, while her landlord husband introduced legislation that would, in part, lead to the widespread misery, poverty and starvation of the Great Famine. Nevertheless, as founder of the Abbey Theatre, an outspoken opponent of censorship, and mentor, muse, and mother-figure to W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory played a pivotal role in shaping Irish literary and dramatic history. Moreover, despite her parents’ early predictions of spinsterhood, she was no matronly figure, engaging in a passionate affair while Trade ReviewBiographical portraits are too often nowadays smudged in a surfeit of words . . . this one is a brilliant illumination. * Spectator *

    15 in stock

    £8.54

  • Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics

    Indiana University Press Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisDiscusses the literary and artistic effects of globalisationTrade ReviewAdesokan offers a successful, rigorous example of a project that demonstrates the political urgency and conceptual depth of African artists, as well as artists' investment in mercurial global political networks that stretch across generations and continents.32 Spring 2013 * NKA :Jrnl of Contemporary African Art *Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics is very much a book for postcolonial studies scholars to think with. . . . Adesokan provides a systematic way of thinking about the deep structural links that unite globalization and decolonization, as world-historical social formations, in the work of artists from what was once called the 'Third World.' Borrowing from network theory, Adesokan demonstrates how we might create new cognitive maps of the postcolonial 'Third World' based on links and ties across geographic space and in relationship to the metropoles, an approach that justifies his own pairing of African, Caribbean, and South Asian artists and thinkers. * African Studies Review *Scholars of African visual culture will be well served by Akin Adesokan's book, which offers a model for interpreting artworks within the many cultural and economic contexts in which they function. He trains most of his keen analysis on film and written literature, and many of his theoretical interventions will prove salient to the most urgent current discourses in the history and criticism of African art in many media and genres. * Journal of Contemporary African Art *Adesokan's erudite study is rich in material and analysis, and the author navigates distinct historical, cultural, and theoretical landscapes with ease.Vol. 43, No. 3 * Research in African Literatures *Highly recommended. * Choice *General readers, researchers, and students will learn from this publication that decolonization and globalization are social ingredients for artists to create a story, and that its ethno-nationalistic and multicontinental perspectives could be the sentinel of eliminating isolated thinking and non-exposure to international artistic freedom of expression.Summer 2015 * Africa Today *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Generic Transformations at the Crossroads of Capital1. C. L. R. James Sees the World Steadily2. Fitful Decolonization: Xala and the Poetics of Double Fetishism3. Tunde Kelani's Nollywood: Aesthetics of Exhortation4. Jean-Pierre Bekolo and the Challenges of Aesthetic Populism5. Imaginary Citizenship: Caryl Phillips's Atlantic World6. Spirits of Bandung: A Sarcastic Subject Writes to EmpireConclusion: Being African in the WorldNotesList of ReferencesFilmographyIndex

    Out of stock

    £17.99

  • Queer: A Graphic History

    Icon Books Queer: A Graphic History

    3 in stock

    Book Synopsis'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' ViceActivist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel.From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media.Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.Trade ReviewCould totally change the way you think about sex and gender ... an utterly un-dusty tome that questions everything from the way we categorise our sexual desire to the foundations of happiness. -- VICEThis hopeful and welcoming attitude should encourage readers to queer their own lives in whatever ways feel right. -- Publishers WeeklyYanks the jargon of Foucault, Butler and a who's who of philosophers down from the clouds and into simple, clear messages -- Sydney Morning HeraldA concise, precise and beautifully illustrated introduction. -- Kieron GillenA playful, graphic analysis of the paradox that is queer theory - opens our hearts as much as it engages our minds. -- Kate BornsteinWith their inspired synthesis of words and imagery, MJ Barker and Jules Scheele take us beyond binaries to show us the richness of queer as a critique, as a verb and as an approach to life itself. -- Jane Czyzselska, DIVAExceptionally informative ... an invaluable and illuminating resource -- The BeatSucceeds in opening its rarefied subject matter to non-academic audiences and disrupting assumptions and preconceptions about gender and sexuality, not to mention race, class, and the idea of "normal." -- Library JournalUnexpected, extraordinary wit and erudition ... Aha moments come one right after another. One small step for queer theory, this project will leap the layman far down the path of tolerance and understanding. -- Foreword ReviewOne of the most enjoyable aspects of this book is the charm of Jules Scheele's understated, accessible illustrations ... The book holds a great amount of respect for this pantheon of theorists, even when problematizing some of their views, and the art communicates that respect effectively. -- Rain TaxiFresh interpretations and clever illustrations help bring new life to academic constructs and an understanding of the intersection of biology, psychology, and modern culture. -- Washington BladeStudents everywhere rejoice! For we have an explanation of queer theory that is simple, comprehensive, critical and inclusive ... as well as having popular culture references to make the ideas stick. -- Katherine Hubbard, University of Surrey

    3 in stock

    £15.29

  • C. S. Lewis and His Circle

    Oxford University Press Inc C. S. Lewis and His Circle

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFor thirty years, the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society has met weekly in the medieval colleges of the University of Oxford. During that time, it has hosted as speakers nearly all those still living who were associated with the Inklings--the Oxford literary circle led by C.S. Lewis--, as well as authors and thinkers of a prominence that nears Lewis''s own.C.S. Lewis and His Circle offers the reader a chance to join this unique group. Roger White has worked with Society past-presidents Brendan and Judith Wolfe to select the best unpublished talks, which are here made available to the public for the first time. They exemplify the best of traditional academic essays, thoughtful memoirs, and informal reminiscences about C.S. Lewis and his circle. The reader will re-imagine Lewis''s Cosmic Trilogy with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; read philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe''s final word on Lewis''s arguments for Christianity; hear the Reverend Peter Bide''s memories of marrying Lewis and Joy Davidman in an Oxford hospital; and learn about Lewis''s Narnia Chronicles from his former secretary.Representing the finest of both personal and scholarly engagement with C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, the talks collected here set a new tone for engagement with this iconic Oxford literary circle--a tone close to Lewis''s own Oxford-bred sharpness and wryness, seasoned with good humor and genuine affection for C.S. Lewis and his circle.Trade ReviewThe quality of the essays is, as you would expect in the context, very high and yet each of them remains accessible to the reader. * Methodist Recorder *You need not be a dedicated Lewis fan to enjoy this collection, though such will welcome it; there is much to interest the general reader and, perhaps, to introduce themes from Lewis' life and work to those who might not expect to find or like them. * The Tablet *rich and varied collection * Theology *It is difficult to say which essays, which memoirs, are most enjoyable * Weekly Standard *C. S. Lewis and His Circle is strongest as a collective memoir and will appeal to those looking for a picture of the man from those who knew him well. Certainly, Narnia enthusiasts will find something here albeit hidden behind texts they might not find as appealing to start with * Concatenation *... this welcome collection ... will have an important place in Lewis studies. * The Glass *incisive essays ... C.S. Lewis and His Circle offers something for every reader * Touchstone *Table of ContentsForeword, Gregory & Suzanne Wolfe (Founders of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society) ; Preface, Roger White, Judith Wolfe, and Brendan Wolfe ; Author Biographies ; Part I. Essays ; Philosophy & Theology ; C. S. Lewis, Defender of the Faith, Alister McGrath (Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford) ; C. S. Lewis' Rewrite of Chapter III of 'Miracles', Elizabeth Anscombe (Leading twentieth-century philosopher) ; C. S. Lewis and the Limits of Reason, Stephen Logan (Musician, poet; Principal Supervisor in English, Clare College, Cambridge) ; Sacramentalism in C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, Kallistos Ware (Metropolitan Bishop of Diocleia; Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies (Emeritus), University of Oxford) ; Charles Williams and the Problem of Evil, Paul Fiddes (Professor of Systematic Theology, Oxford University) ; Literature ; 'That Hideous Strength': A Reassessment, Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, previously 104th Archbishop of Canterbury) ; Yearning for a Far Off Country, Malcolm Guite (Poet, singer-songwriter; Chaplain at Girton College, Cambridge) ; W. H. Auden and the Inklings, Michael Piret (Dean of Divinity, Magdalen College, Oxford) ; The Lewis Diaries: C. S. Lewis and the English Faculty in the 1920's, Thomas Shippey (Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities (Emeritus), Saint Louis University) ; It All Began with a Picture: The Making of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Walter Hooper (Editor and biographer of C. S. Lewis; literary advisor to the C. S. Lewis Estate) ; II. Memoirs ; Memories of C. S. Lewis by his Family and Friends ; The Lewis Family, Joan Murphy (A Lewis Family Cousin) ; Recollections of Lewis, George Sayer (Former student, friend, and biographer of C. S. Lewis) ; Lewis as a Parishioner, Ronald Head (Formerly Vicar of Holy Trinity Church Headington Quarry, where C. S. Lewis attended) ; Marrying C. S. Lewis, Peter Bide (Friend and priest of C. S. Lewis, officiate of Lewis's marriage to Joy Davidman) ; Memories of the Socratic Club, Stella Aldwinckle (Founder of the Oxford Socratic Club) ; Memories of the Inklings ; The Inklings, Walter Hooper (Editor and biographer of C. S. Lewis; literary advisor to the C. S. Lewis Estate) ; Lewis and/or Barfield, Owen Barfield (Friend of C. S. Lewis, Inklings member, solicitor, philosopher, poet) ; Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of W. H. Lewis, John Wain (Friend of C. S. Lewis, Inklings member, poet, novelist) ; Nevill Coghill and Lewis: Two Irishmen at Oxford, John Wain (Friend of C. S. Lewis, Inklings member, poet, novelist) ; Afterword,A Brief History of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society Michael Ward (Senior Member of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society) ; Index

    15 in stock

    £28.97

  • The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

    HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"A must for a new generation of readers of Wilder's stories and for those who recall having enjoyed the "Little House" books as a child and wish to gain further insight into the life of the series' author." -- Library Journal "Wilder fans will surely rejoice at this collection, which may also serve to introduce a new generation of readers to this important and much-loved American author." -- Booklist "[I]n her letters, just as in her books and in person, Laura Ingalls Wilder is effortlessly sunny good company...[R]eading these wonderfully human letters will make every reader hope for more." -- Christian Science Monitor

    Out of stock

    £11.96

  • Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics:

    Rowman & Littlefield International Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics:

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisFrom Tolkien to Star Trek and from Game of Thrones to The Walking Dead, imaginary worlds in fantastic genres offer us complex and immersive environments beyond capitalism. This book examines the ways in which these popular storyworlds offer valuable tools for anticapitalist theory and practice. Building on Hardt and Negri’s concept of Empire as a way of understanding globalization, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics shows how popular fantastic fiction has the potential of offering more than a momentary escape from capitalist realism in the age of media convergence and participatory culture. The book approaches fantastic world-building as an ideologically ambiguous way of imagining alternatives to global capitalism. By approaching transmedia world-building both as a narrative form and as a growing industry derived from fan culture, it shows on the one hand the limitations inherent in the political economy of popular genre fiction. But at the same time, it also explores the productive ways in which fantastic storyworlds contain a radical energy that can give us new ways of thinking about politics, popular culture, and anticapitalism.Trade ReviewAs Europe’s leading critic on transmedia culture, Dan Hassler-Forest’s Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics guides us through the landscapes of contemporary film, television, and video. From Tolkien to Afro-futurism, from Raymond Williams to Hardt and Negri, Hassler-Forest delivers a set of sharp commentaries on the hazards of capitalist mythologies and pitfalls of post-capitalist desires in these alternative lifeworlds. -- Stephen Shapiro, Professor, Dept. of English & Comparative Literary Studies, University of WarwickScience Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics explores the intersection between world-building as practiced in speculative fiction and the desire to imagine (or constrain) alternatives to contemporary capitalism. He writes knowingly, affectionately, yet critically, about franchises as diverse as Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, and The Walking Dead, mapping the ways each embodies contradictions at the heart of neoliberal capitalism -- contradictions that surface in terms of their formal properties as transmedia franchises, their commercial contexts, and the consumer practices they inspire. -- Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California, Author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media CollideScience Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics offers a wide ranging analysis of transmedia storyworlds and fan culture, covering branding, ‘Quality TV’, the HBO effect, political revolution, race and gender … [The book] is certainly an interesting and worthwhile read. * Participations: The International Journal of Audience and Reception Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments / 1. Imaginary Empires: Transmedia World-building and Global Capitalism / 2. World-building and Convergence Culture: From Imperialism to Empire / 3. Fantastical Capitalism and Post-ideological World-building / 4. Revolutionary Storyworlds and Post-democratic Capitalism / 5. Beyond Capitalism: Posthuman Storyworlds / 6. “Post”-script / Bibliography / Index

    Out of stock

    £36.90

  • Persian Letters

    Oxford University Press Persian Letters

    2 in stock

    Book Synopsis''Oh! Monsieur is Persian? That''s most extraordinary! How can someone be Persian?''Two Persian travellers, Usbek and Rica, arrive in Paris just before the death of Louis XIV and in time to witness the hedonism and financial crash of the Regency. In their letters home they report on visits to the theatre and scientific societies, and observe the manners and flirtations of polite society, the structures of power and the hypocrisy of religion. Irony and bitter satire mark their comparison of East and West and their quest for understanding. Unsettling news from Persia concerning the female world of the harem intrudes on their new identities and provides a suspenseful plot of erotic jealousy and passion.This pioneering epistolary novel and work of travel-writing opened the world of the West to its oriental visitors and the Orient to its Western readers. This is the first English translation based on the original text, revealing this lively work as Montesquieu first intended. ABOUT THE SERI

    2 in stock

    £11.39

  • Sayings of the Buddha

    Oxford University Press Sayings of the Buddha

    4 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis edition offers a new translation of a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings reflecting the full variety of material: biography of the Buddha, narrative, myth, short sayings, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life. It provides an excellent introduction to Buddhist scripture.Trade ReviewRupert Gethin's 'Sayings of the Buddha' [is] translated with an eye toward readability. * Buddhaharma *This short volume is...a resource for teachers and students, and anyone interested in early Buddhist literature. * Buddhaharma *

    4 in stock

    £10.44

  • Charles Sanders Peirce Enlarged Edition Revised

    Indiana University Press Charles Sanders Peirce Enlarged Edition Revised

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisA new edition issued in paperback of the critically acclaimed biography of Charles Sanders Peirce.Trade Review[P]eirce himself displayed both logical brilliance and serious moral weaknesses, as Brent's narrative so vividly illustrates. This is one of the central, tragic paradoxes of Peirce's life and thought, and Joseph Brent has done a superb job of exposing and exploring it.15.3 Sept. 1994 * American Journal of Theology and Philosophy *Peirce (1839, 1914) is America's most creative, dominant, and original philosopher. Yet the first book-length biography of the founder of pragmatism was not published until 75 years after his death: Elisabeth Walther's Charles Sanders Peirce: Leben und Werk (Baden—Baden, 1989). Now we have the first American biography, and a superb book it is. The 35 years Brent expended in making this biography have seasoned and enriched his definitive production. (The telling of Peirce's story, like his life, has been fraught with malversation. Some day the story of telling his story will be told.) Here, the facts of Peirce's life are integrated into the systematization that he hoped would for a long time to come [influence] the entire work of human reason. From fields as diverse and powerful as semiotics, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, psychology, linguistics, geology, philosophy of science, mathematics, and religion, these effects are being acknowledged. The role of Peirce's life in the chronological development of his ideas structures this narrative and gives an expositional argument for a solid interpretation of his philosophy as a single architectonic system. Five chapters of the biography cover in chronological order 75 years of Peirce's life. The sixth and last, a brilliant essay The Wasp in the Bottle, could alone make this work a masterpiece. Indiana University Press is also publishing a complete edition, Writings of Charles S. Peirce (1982— ; v.1, CH, Feb'83). Six volumes are published of 30 expected. (The project, this year, is in a struggle for continued support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.) From the published volumes, IUP has now issued the first of a projected two—volume sampler: The Essential Peirce, containing 25 well—edited, important works written by Peirce from 1867 to 1893, with an excellent introduction by Nathan Houser, associate editor of the Peirce Edition project. From Harvard University Press comes Peirce's Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898, Reasoning and the Logic of Things. The text, taken from the Houghton Library collections for the purpose of a study edition, is without the critical editorial work of the IUP editions. The 50 pages of comment by Hilary Putnam are of interest in themselves; the 160 pages of Peirce's eight lectures are demonstrations of the authority and originality of his thought. Here is a generally accessible and complete account of Peirce's mature work constructed by Peirce himself in order to introduce his philosophy to nonspecialists. This book in an undergraduate library would make Peirce's philosophy intelligible independently of philosophy courses and philosophy teachers. Each of these books is well published and contains effective notes and an adequate index. This reviewer's highest recommendation is for Brent's biography, which should be in every college and university library in America. The next priority is Reasoning and the Logic of Things, a new and valuable addition to Peirce primary sources presently available. Libraries not subscribing to the complete Writings. . .should certainly order The Essential Peirce.September 1993 -- K. J. Dykeman * Fairfield University *

    1 in stock

    £25.19

  • On Stories

    HarperCollins Publishers Inc On Stories

    3 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    3 in stock

    £12.59

  • The Poetics of Biblical Narrative

    Indiana University Press The Poetics of Biblical Narrative

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis . . . is a brilliant work. Choice[Sternberg] has written a very important book, both for his comprehensiveness and for the clearly-avowed faith stance from which he understands and interprets the strategies of the biblical narratives. . . . a superb overview . . . Theological Studies . . . rated very highly indeed. It is a book to read and then reread. Modern Language Review . . . Sternberg has accomplished an enormous task, enriching our understanding of the theoretical basis of biblical narrative and giving us insight into a remarkable number of particular texts. Journal of the American Academy of Religion . . . an important book for those who seek to take the Bible seriously as a literary work because it shows, more clearly and emphatically than any book I know, that the Bible is a serious literary worka text manifesting a highly sophisticated and successful narrative poetics. Adele Berlin, ProoftextsTrade Review"This ... is a brilliant work." Choice "[Sternberg] has written a very important book, both for his comprehensiveness and for the clearly-avowed faith stance from which he understands and interprets the strategies of the biblical narratives... a superb overview ... " Theological Studies " ... rated very highly indeed. It is a book to read and then reread." Modern Language Review " ... Sternberg has accomplished an enormous task, enriching our understanding of the theoretical basis of biblical narrative and giving us insight into a remarkable number of particular texts." Journal of the American Academy of Religion " ... an important book for those who seek to take the Bible seriously as a literary work because it shows, more clearly and emphatically than any book I know, that the Bible is a serious literary work - a text manifesting a highly sophisticated and successful narrative poetics." Adele Berlin, ProoftextsTable of ContentsPreface1. Literary Text, Literary Approach: Getting the Questions StraightDiscourse and SourceFiction and HistoryForm and DoctrineThe Drama of Reading2. Narrative Models3. Ideology of Narration and Narration of Ideology Omniscience Charged and Monopolized: The Epistemological RevolutionThe Omnipotence Effect: Control Claimed and Disclaimed4. Viewpoints and InterpretationsPoint of View and Its Biblical ConfigurationThe Wooing of RebekahPositions and Discrepancies EstablishedThe Movement form Divergence to Convergence of PerspectivesNew Tensions and Final Resolution5. The Play of PerspectivesNarrator vs. GodNarrator and Reader vs. God and Characters Spheres of CommunicationThree Reading PositionsFrom Plot to PerspectiveFrom Ignorance to KnowledgePrivilege and Performance6. Gaps, Ambiquity and the Reading ProcessThe Literary Work as a System of GapsThe Story of David and Bathsheba: On the Narrator's Reticence and OmissionsThe Ironic ExpositionWhat Is the King Doing in the City?Uriah the Hittite Recalled to JerusalemDoes Uriah Know about His Wife's Doings? The Twofold HypothesisWhat Does David Think That Uriah Thinks? The Three-Way HypothesisHow Joab Fails to Carry Out David's OrderThe Analogy to the Story of Abimelech and the WomanOn Mutually Exclusive Systems of Gap-Filling: Turning the Screws of Henry James and Others7. Between the Truth and the Whole TruthFoolproof Composition in AmbiguityThe Relevance of AbsenceTemporary and Permanent GappingThe Echoing InterrogativeOpposition in JuxtapositionCoherence Threatened and FortifiedNorms and Their ViolationsFrom Gapping to Closure: The Functions of Ambiguity8. Temporal Discontinuity, Narrative Interest, and the Emergence of MeaningSuspense and the Dynamics of ProspectionThe Pros and Cons of Suspense in the BibleModes of Shaping the Narrative FutureDarkness in Light, or: Zigzagging toward Sisera's EndCuriosity and the Dynamics of RetrospectionJoseph and His Brothers: Making Sense of the PastSurprise and the Dynamics of Recognition9. Proleptic PortraitsCharacter and Characterization: From Divine to HumanWhy the Truth about Character Does Not SufficeThe Art of the Proleptic EpithetEpithets and the Rule of Forward-looking Exposition10. Going from Surface to DepthCharacter as Action, Character in ActionThe Composition of Character and the Limits of Metonymic InferenceOld Age in GenesisGood Looks in Samuel11. The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational RedundancySimilarity Patterns and the Structure of RepetitionFormulaic Convention or Functional Principle?Constant and Variable FactorsVerbatim RepetitionRepetition with Variation: Forms and Functions of DevianceRepetition and Communication: Pharah's DreamBasic Axes and Natural CombinationsFrom Natural to Functional CombinationsDeliberate Variation: (Figural) Rhetoric within (Narratorial) RhetoricGeneric Transformation into ParablePermutations and Some ComplicationsRepetition and Narrative Art: Some General Consequences12. The Art of PersusionPersuading in the Court of ConscienceDelicate Balance in the Rape of DinahThe Rhetorical Repertoire13. Ideology, Rhetoric, PoeticsJustifying the Ways of God to Man: Saul's RejectionDancing in ChainsDialogue as Pressure, Variations as JudgmentConvergence with Belated Discovery: Rhetorical OverkillNotesIndex

    1 in stock

    £30.40

  • Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and

    Catapult Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis National Book Critics Circle Award is “an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges (The New York Times). “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,” Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

    10 in stock

    £12.34

  • Ghostly Apparitions: German Idealism, the Gothic

    4 in stock

    £25.20

  • The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete

    Cornell University Press The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisThe cache of bamboo texts unearthed in the village of Guodian, Hubei Province, in 1993 is a rare and unique find in the history of Chinese philosophy and literature. This study renders the complex corpus of the Guodian texts into a more easily manageable form, incorporating the past several years of scholarly activity on these texts and providing them with a comprehensive introduction along with a complete and well-annotated translation into English. As the only archaeologically excavated corpus of philosophical manuscripts to emerge from a Warring States–period tomb, the Guodian texts provide us with a wealth of reliable information for gaining new insights into the textual and intellectual history of pre-imperial China. Given the prominence of Confucian works in the corpus, they serve to fill out much of the intellectual historical picture for the doctrines of roughly three generations of Confucian disciples who fell between the times of Confucius (551–479 BC) and Mencius (c. 390–305 BC). The manuscripts also hold great significance for the study of early Chinese paleography and phonology. Volume II offers introductions to and annotated translations of the manuscripts "Cheng zhi," "Zun deyi," "Xing zi ming chu," "Liu de," and "Yucong" 1-4, along with various appendixes. These include collation tables of witnesses to the Guodian "Laozi" passages and a running translation of all the Guodian texts.Trade ReviewThe long-awaited publication of this magnum opus by Scott Cook, one of the leading scholars in the fields of early Chinese philosophy and the study of excavated manuscripts, is a major event in the study of early China and a cause for celebration. Cook, in Asia better known under his Chinese name Gu Shikao, which also appears on the book cover, presents us with a comprehensive study and translation of the entire corpus of the Guodianmanuscripts. The great significance of this work is owing not only to its scholarly quality but also to the special importance of its subject matter. -- Matthias L. Richter * Journal of Chinese Religions *This magnificent, 1,200-page, two-volume work is an essential reference for anyone interested in the Guodian texts.... Scott Cook has been comprehensive and inclusive, distilling scholarship from close to 1,000 secondary sources in his copiously annotated transcriptions of texts and in his discussion of the debates they have inspired.... Cook's aim in this work was to "provide a manageable basis for futher study" (p. 176) and, as he acknowledges, his translations naturally reflect his own informed understanding of the texts. Given the continuing debates over strip order and the identification of particular graphs, as well as differing views on the nature of certain texts, scholars of course have different interpretations of the materials. Future discoveries of palaeo-graphic materials, along with advances in the field of historical phonology, will allow scholars to reasses the identification of certain graphs, also affecting our understanding of the texts. But Cook's objective presentation clearly acknowledges these facts, and the reader is provided with many of the alternative analyses and made aware that the work will best be used in conjunction with new findings that solve or clarify remaining problems. * Journal of Asian Studies *

    Out of stock

    £100.80

  • Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures

    Wave Books Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis is one of the wisest books I've read in years...--New York Times Book Review No writer I know of comes close to even trying to articulate the weird magic of poetry as Ruefle does. She acknowledges and celebrates in the odd mystery and mysticism of the act--the fact that poetry must both guard and reveal, hint at and pull back...Also, and maybe most crucially, Ruefle's work is never once stuffy or overdone: she writes this stuff with a level of seriousness-as-play that's vital and welcome, that doesn't make writing poetry sound anything but wild, strange, life-enlargening fun. -The Kenyon Review Profound, unpredictable, charming, and outright funny...These informal talks have far more staying power and verve than most of their kind. Readers may come away dazzled, as well as amused...--Publishers Weekly This is a book not just for poets but for anyone interested in the human heart, the inner-life, the breath exhaling a completion of an idea that will make you feel changed in some way. This is a desert island book. --Matthew Dickman The accomplished poet is humorous and self-deprecating in this collection of illuminating essays on poetry, aesthetics and literature...- -San Francisco Examiner Over the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential, Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter--and utterly pleasurable--immersion. Finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. Mary Ruefle has published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and erasures. She lives in Vermont.Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS On Beginnings Poetry and The Moon On Sentimentality On Theme On Secrets: Eight Beginnings, Two Ends On Fear Madness, Rack and Honey My Emily Dickinson Introduction To Lecture on Books So You Want To Write A Book? Someone Reading A Book Is A Sign Of Order In The World Remarks on Letters Kangaroo Beach I Remember, I Remember Introduction To Reading Great Poems Of The Past Twenty-Two Short Lectures Lectures I Will Never Give

    5 in stock

    £17.09

  • How to Write a Sentence

    HarperCollins Publishers Inc How to Write a Sentence

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisNew York Times Bestseller“Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style” —Adam Haslett, Financial Times“A guided tour through some of the most beautiful, arresting sentences in the English language.” —SlateIn this entertaining and erudite gem, world-class professor and New York Times columnist Stanley Fish offers both sentence craft and sentence pleasure, skills invaluable to any writer (or reader). Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptness of finely crafted sentences and breaks them down into digestible morsels, giving readers an instant play-by-play. Drawing on a wide range of great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works. It is a book that will stand the test of time.Trade Review"Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style." -- Financial Times "A guided tour through some of the most beautiful, arresting sentences in the English language." -- Slate "[Fish] shares his connoisseurship of the elegant sentence." -- The New Yorker "Stanley Fish just might be America's most famous professor." -- BookPage "How to Write a Sentence is a compendium of syntactic gems-light reading for geeks." -- New York magazine "How to Write a Sentence isn't merely a prescriptive guide to the craft of writing but a rich and layered exploration of language as an evolving cultural organism. It belongs not on the shelf of your home library but in your brain's most deep-seated amphibian sensemaking underbelly." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings "[Fish's] approach is genially experiential-a lifelong reader's engagement whose amatory enthusiasm is an attempt to overthrow Strunk & White's infamous insistences on grammar by rote." -- New York Observer "In this small feast of a book Stanley Fish displays his love of the English sentence. His connoisseurship is broad and deep, his examples are often breathtaking, and his analyses of how the masterpieces achieve their effects are acute and compelling." -- New Republic "A sentence is, in John Donne's words, 'a little world made cunningly,' writes Fish. He'll teach you the art." -- People "This splendid little volume describes how the shape of a sentence controls its meaning." -- Boston Globe "Like a long periodic sentence, this book rumbles along, gathers steam, shifts gears, and packs a wallop." -- Roy Blount Jr. "Language lovers will flock to this homage to great writing." -- Booklist "Fish is a personable and insightful guide with wide-ranging erudition and a lack of pretension." -- National Post "For both aspiring writer and eager reader, Fish's insights into sentence construction and care are instructional, even inspirational." -- The Huffington Post "If you love language you'll find something interesting, if not fascinating, in [How to Write a Sentence]." -- CBSNews.com "[A] slender but potent volume. Fish, a distinguished law professor and literary theorist, is the anti-Strunk & White." -- The Globe and Mail "You'd get your money's worth from the quotations alone...if you give this book the attention it so clearly deserves, you will be well rewarded." -- Washington Times "The fun comes from the examples cited throughout: John Updike, Jane Austen...all are cited throughout." -- Washington Post "How to Write a Sentence is the first step on the journey to the Promised Land of good writing." -- Saudi Gazette "How to Write a Sentence is a must read for aspiring writers and anyone who wants to deepen their appreciation of literature. If extraordinary sentences are like sports plays, Fish is the Vin Scully of great writing." -- Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, authors of "They Say/I Say" "Coming up with all-or-nothing arguments is simply what Fish does; and, in a sense, one of his most important contributions to the study of literature is that temperament...Whether people like Fish or not, though, they tend to find him fascinating." -- The New Yorker

    2 in stock

    £9.49

  • Sensational Vancouver

    Anvil Press Publishers Inc Sensational Vancouver

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisHistory books typically show Vancouver as a pioneer city built on forestry, fisheries, and tourism, but behind the snow-capped mountains and rain forests, the Vancouver of the first half of the 20th century was a seething mass of corruption. The top job at the Vancouver Police Department was a revolving door with the average tenure for a police chief of just four years. In those early years, Detective Joe Ricci's beat was the opium dens and gambling joints of Chinatown, while LurancyHarris-the first female cop in Canada-patrolled the high-end brothels of Alexander Street. Later, proceeds from rum running produced some of the city's iconic buildings, cops became robbers, and the city reeled from a series of unsolved murders. But Vancouver is more than bookies, brothels, and bootleggers-the city also produced legendary women, world-class entertainers and ground-breaking architecture. Sensational Vancouver is a fully illustrated popular history book about Vancouver's famous and infamous, the ordinary and the extraordinary, filtered through the houses in which they lived. Sensational Vancouver covers legendary women including Elsie MacGill, Phyllis Munday, Nellie Yip Quong and Joy Kogawa; high-end brothels, unsolved murders, and the homes and buildings of artists, architects and entertainers including Frederick Varley, Arthur Erickson, Bryan Adams, and Michael Bublé. Includes a Walking Tour map of historic Strathcona and Chinatown. Praise for At Home with History: "You might call her the Sherlock Holmes of home history. Lazarus's stories bring Vancouver's past back to life." -the Outlook "A mix of old black-and-white street-scene photos, jovial stories, and unique neighbourhood profiles, the book crushes the idea that Vancouver is a city without history." -The Georgia Straight "exceptional incidents in ordinary houses and ordinary people in exceptional houses." -The Vancouver Sun "Lazarus reveals the hidden stories of a number of Vancouver's heritage homes, setting each within the larger context of its neighbourhood bootleggers rub shoulders with financiers, prostitutes with police, murderers with mayors." -The Vancouver Courier

    2 in stock

    £17.09

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