ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book Synopsis"You said that you would not fail to improve yourself according to my teaching and correction, and you would do everything in your power to behave according to my wishes." [Prologue] "I urge you to bewitch and bewitch again your future husband, and...Trade ReviewA cookbook section contains over 350 recipes, and if many of them are taken from authorities such as the royal chef Taillevent, the author is quite opinionated about what works and what doesn't; he improves some recipes and offers others that seem to be his own. No man before or since has known more about running an affluent household, from keeping vermin out of linen to shopping in the market to caring for hunting hawks. The work has a peculiar tone, bossy yet tender, even elegiac. In their introduction the translators emphasize the husband's firm desire to subordinate his wife, but acknowledge that they found the book more appealing than they had originally expected. -- Paul Freedman * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Maid to Order: The Good Wife of Paris The Book: Backgrounds, Narrator, Genre, Sources Contexts: Conduct Books and Household Books Glossing the Tale of Griselda: The Model Wife and Marriage in Le Ménagier de Paris Translation ProtocolsThe Good Wife's Guide: The English Text of Le Ménagier de Paris Prologue Introductory Note to Articles 1.1-1.3 Prayers and Orderly Dress (1.1) Behavior and Attire in Public (1.2) The Mass, Confession, the Vices and Virtues (1.3) On Chastity (1.4) Devotion to Your Husband (1.5) Obedience (including the Story of Griselda) (1.6) The Care of the Husband's Person (1.7) The Husband's Secrets (1.8) Introductory Note to Article 1.9 Providing Your Husband with Good Counsel (including the Story of Melibee) (1.9) Introductory Note to Article 2.1 Le Chemin de povreté et de richesse (2.1) Horticulture (2.2) 2 Choosing and Caring for Servants and Horses (2.3) Introductory Note to Article 3.2 Hawking Treatise (3.2) Menus (2.4) Recipes (2.5)Glossary of Culinary Terms Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisToibin's remarkable insights provide scholars, students, and general readers a fresh encounter with James's well-known texts.Trade ReviewThe book does not disappoint. The essays may be incidental-reviews, introductions, lectures-but each conveys a sense of Toibin's deep engagement with his subject and his writer's way with words. Irish Times 2010 Anyone interested in Toibin's process of transforming the life of James into a novel of immense subtlety should look carefully at a recent volume of essays. -- Jay Parini Chronicle of Higher EducationTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Susan M. GriffinChapter 1. Henry James in Ireland: A FootnoteChapter 2. The Haunting of Lamb HouseChapter 3. A More Elaborate Web: Becoming Henry JamesChapter 4. Pure Evil: "The Turn of the Screw"Chapter 5. The Lessons of the MasterChapter 6. Henry James's New YorkChapter 7. A Death, a Book, an Apartment: The Portrait of a LadyChapter 8. Reflective BiographyChapter 9. A Bundle of LettersChapter 10. All a Novelist NeedsChapter 11. The Later JamesesAfterword: SilenceIndex

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Book SynopsisA central character in legends and histories of the Old West, Billy the Kid rivals such western icons as Jesse James and General George Armstrong Custer for the number of books and movies his brief, violent life inspired. This volume introduces readers to the most significant of these written and filmed works.

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Book SynopsisThe New View from Cane River features ten in-depth essays that provide fresh, diverse perspectives on Kate Chopin''s first novel, At Fault. While much critical work on the author prioritizes her famous, groundbreaking second book, The Awakening, its 1890 predecessor remains a fascinating text that presents a complicated moral universe, including a plot that involves divorce, alcoholism, and murder set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Edited by Chopin scholar Heather Ostman, the essays in The New View from Cane River provide multiple approaches for understanding this complex work, with particular attention to the dynamics of the post-Reconstruction era and its effects on race, gender, and economics in Louisiana. Original perspectives introduced by the contributors include discussions of Chopin''s treatment of privilege, sexology, and Unitarianism, as well as what At Fault reveals about the early stages of literary modernism and the reading

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Book SynopsisInvestigates the overlapping cultures of fandom and American literature from the late 1800s to the mid-1940s, exploding the oft-repeated myth that fandom has its origins in the male-dominated letter columns of science fiction pulp magazines in the 1930s.Trade ReviewBefore Fanfiction significantly expands, extends, revises, and reanimates our understanding of the multiple histories of fandom and, in particular, fan writing, through a consideration of other transformative literary practices. Edwards's boldly revisionist approach makes this book essential reading, decentering the white male science fiction fan conventions from fandom's origin stories, in favor of women's clubs, circles, and magazines of the early twentieth century." - Henry Jenkins, author of Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture"A vivid investigation of the historical bonds that link fandom, criticism, and creative practice. Edwards shows how the fan cultures of today are rooted in a matriarchal and thoroughly literary lineage that extends well beyond our contemporary mediaverse." - Sheila Liming, author of What a Library Means to a Woman: Edith Wharton and the Will to Collect Books"Before Fanfiction reenergizes fan studies in exciting new directions that promise to revolutionize the field. Revising the 'fandom creation myth,' Edwards establishes a lineage of fan audiences through varied genealogies, including early literary fan communities, letter columns in literary magazines, and fan mail. Exploring an intersectional history of fan culture, Edwards changes our understanding of fandom today and, relevantly, what fandom can be in the future. A must-read for fan scholars and audiences alike." - Paul Booth, professor of media and popular culture at DePaul University and author of Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age

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Book SynopsisEnlivened by rum, mutiny, and buried treasure, Treasure Island is the classic pirates' tale, widely regarded as the forerunner of this genre. After discovering a treasure map, young Jim Hawkins sets off to sea as cabin boy aboard the Hispaniola, where he encounters one of the most unforgettable characters in literary history.

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Book SynopsisVividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli¯ Nu‘ma¯ni¯ (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in 1892. A professor of Arabic and Persian, Nu‘ma¯ni¯ took a six-month leave from teaching to travel to the Ottoman Empire in search of rare printed works and manuscripts.Trade ReviewA work of surprising complexity. The detailed notes, the appendices, the multilingual and multinational research that the translator has done. . . . The results have made the translation far more usefully accessible than the plain text could ever have been, as a primary source for scholars of Middle Eastern intellectual and cultural history of the period. Nu‘mani was one of India’s most creative and enterprising intellectuals at the turn of the 20th century. His travelogue to the Ottoman lands, a classic of Urdu literature, is a riveting account of his experiences as he met a wide range of individuals, visited schools and libraries, and collected scholarly materials with enthusiasm. Bruce’s lucid translation, supported by excellent notes and appendices, is without question a work that will at once inform and entertain. Bruce achieved a masterful translation of an influential late 19th century Urdu text of Shibli Noumani, his travel account of Turkey, Egypt and Syria in 1892. Readings an Indian Muslims proud observations of progress and reform in the ethnically mixed cities ruled by Ottoman Caliph Abdulhamid II will be essential to understand the late 19th century Pan-Islamism during an era of empire, race and geopolitics.

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Book SynopsisExamines Irish novels of the post-crash era, addressing the proliferation of writing that downplays realistic and grammatical coherence in works of fiction. McGlynn argues that they are reflecting and responding to social and economic conditions during the global economic crisis and its aftermath of recession, austerity, and precarity.

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking new history of urban cruising through the lenses of urban poets The Poetics of Cruising explores the relationship between cruising, photography, and the visual in the work of leading poets, from Walt Whitman in the nineteenth century to Eileen Myles in the twenty-first. What is it that happens, asks Jack Parlett, and what is it that is sought, in this often transient moment of perception we call cruising, this perceptual arena where acts of looking between strangers are intensified and eroticized? Parlett believes that this moment is not only optical in nature but visual: a mode of looking that warrants comparison with the ways in which we behold still and moving images. Whether it’s Whitman’s fixation with daguerreotypes, Langston Hughes’s hybrid photographic works, or Frank O’Hara’s love of Hollywood movie stars, argues Parlett, the history of poets cruising abounds with this intermingling between the verbal and the visual, the passing and the fixed. To look at someone in the act of cruising, this history suggests, is to capture, consider, and aestheticize, amid the flux and instantaneity of urban time. But it is also to reveal the ambivalence at the heart of this erotic search, where power may be unevenly distributed across glances, and gendered and racialized bodies are marked. Thus, in identifying for the first time this confluence of cruising, poetry, and visual culture, Parlett concludes that the visual erotic economy associated with gay cruising today, exemplified by the photographic grid of an app like Grindr, is not a uniquely contemporary phenomenon. Innovative, astute, and highly readable, and drawing on compelling archival material, The Poetics of Cruising is a must for scholars of queer and LGBTQ literature and culture, modern and contemporary poetry, visual studies, and the history of sexuality.Trade Review"The Poetics of Cruising is a thoughtfully researched and rigorous examination of the literary pleasures of sex in public across two centuries. Jack Parlett examines the poetics and politics of cruising, a queerly ekphrastic practice, at the intersections of gender, race, and class. Moving between past and present, words and images, close reading and close looking, The Poetics of Cruising explores the enduring appeal of cruising without nostalgia."—Fiona Anderson, author of Cruising the Dead River: David Wojnarowicz and New York’s Ruined Waterfront"The Poetics of Cruising is an innovative, astute, and highly readable account of the intersections of gay life, visuality, and poetics in the work of important gay writers from Walt Whitman to David Wojnarowicz. Analyzing unpublished materials alongside literary texts, The Poetics of Cruising—a model of how to combine history, theory, and close reading—is a fascinating and beautifully written account of cruising as a practice, aesthetic, and methodology."—Christopher Castiglia, Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: A Look1. Passing Strangers2. Walt Whitman, Looking at You3. Looking for Langston Hughes4. Frank O’Hara’s Moving Pictures5. David Wojnarowicz’s PortraitsCoda: A ClickAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisDuring the Middle Ages, the arresting motif of the walled garden - especially in its manifestation as a sacred or love-inflected hortus conclusus - was a common literary device. During the Middle Ages, the arresting motif of the walled garden - especially in its manifestation as a sacred or love-inflected hortus conclusus - was a common literary device. Usually associated with the Virgin Mary or the Lady of popular romance, it appeared in myriad literary and iconographic forms, largely for its aesthetic, decorative and symbolic qualities. This study focuses on the more complex metaphysical functions and meanings attached to it between 1100 and 1400 - and, in particular, those associated with the gardens of Eden and the Song of Songs. Drawing on contemporary theories of gender, gardens, landscape and space, it traces specifically the resurfacing and reworking of the idea and image of the enclosed garden within the writings of medieval holy women and other female-coded texts. In so doing, it presents the enclosed garden as generator of a powerfully gendered hermeneutic imprint within the medieval religious imaginary - indeed, as an alternative "language" used to articulate those highly complex female-coded approaches to God that came to dominate late-medieval religiosity. The book also responds to the "eco-turn" in our own troubled times that attempts to return the non-human to the centre of public and private discourse. The texts under scrutiny therefore invite responses as both literary and "garden" spaces where form often reflects content, and where their authors are also diligent "gardeners": the apocryphal Lives of Adam and Eve, for example; the horticulturally-inflected Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Hohenburg and the "green" philosophies of Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias; the visionary writings of Gertrude the Great and Mechthild of Hackeborn collaborating within their Helfta nunnery; the Middle English poem, Pearl; and multiple reworkings of the deeply problematic and increasingly sexualized garden enclosing the biblical figure of Susanna.Trade ReviewThe Enclosed Garden provides much food for thought for any reader interested in the intersections of medieval women's literature and history, postmodern feminist theory, and feminist ecocriticism. With each re-reading, it offers new insights and details to ponder, much like a garden itself. -- JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS CULTURESPlates allow easy reference to certain iconographic documents... the bibliography is rich and has the merit of not being limited to the English language alone: ​​there are also references in French and German. Overall, it is appropriate to salute a work which invites reflection by tracing new, little-explored paths, particularly in the French-speaking sphere. Planches permettent de se reporter aisément à certains documents iconographiques... La bibliographie est riche et a le mérite de ne pas s'en tenir à l'unique langue anglaise : on y trouve également des références en français et en allemand. Au total, il convient de saluer un ouvrage qui invite à la réflexion en traçant des voies nouvelles, peu explorées, notamment dans la sphère francophone. * LE MOYEN AGE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Gardens, Landscape and the Human Imaginary Out of Eden: The Framing of Eve Une communion inimitable: Material Garden Hermeneutics in the Work of the Women of Mechelen, Herrad of Hohenbourg and Hildegard of Bingen Gertrude of Helfta and Mechthild of Hackeborn: An Arboreal Imaginary of Flourishing Relocating Mechthild's Garden Hermeneutics: The Middle English Poem Pearl 'Straightened on Every Side': Susanna's Garden Dilemma Afterword: The Garden Hermeneutic in the Age of COVID-19 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first in-depth study of Arthurian places in late medieval and early modern England and Wales.Winner of the 2024 Dhira B. Mahoney Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book in Arthurian StudiesPlaces have the power to suspend disbelief, even concerning unbelievable subjects. The many locations associated with King Arthur show this to be true, from Tintagel in Cornwall to Caerleon in Wales. But how and why did Arthurian sites come to proliferate across the English and Welsh landscape? What role did the medieval custodians of Arthurian abbeys, churches, cathedrals, and castles play in "placing" Arthur? How did visitors experience Arthur in situ, and how did their experiences permeate into wider Arthurian tradition? And why, in history and even today, have particular places proven so powerful in defending the impression of Arthur's reality?This book, the first in-depth study of Arthurian places in late medieval and early modern England and Wales, provides an answer to these questions. Beginning with an examination of on-site experiences of Arthur, at locations including Glastonbury, York, Dover, and Cirencester, it traces the impact that they had on visitors, among them John Hardyng, John Leland, William Camden, who subsequently used them as justification for the existence of Arthur in their writings. It shows how the local Arthur was manifested through textual and material culture: in chronicles, notebooks, and antiquarian works; in stained glass windows, earthworks, and display tablets. Via a careful piecing together of the evidence, the volume argues that a new history of Arthur begins to emerge: a local history.

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Book SynopsisDrawn from the manuscript collections at the Bodleian Library, this delightful softback notebook set features the distinctive handwriting of three remarkable women writers and thinkers: Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace. The Library holds part of the manuscript of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel, 'The Watsons', together with the original notebooks in which Mary Shelley wrote 'Frankenstein' and the personal correspondence of mathematical pioneer Ada Lovelace. Inspirational and unusual, these useful literary notebooks make the ideal gift for writers and book-lovers alike.

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Book SynopsisIn this illuminating dialogue, the authors who gave us James Bond and Jules Maigret discuss (among other things) their approaches to the craft of writing, the origins of their characters' names, and the critical reception of their novels

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Book SynopsisA follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, mental, and emotional experience. From offices and libraries to contemporary art museums and shopping malls, climate control systems shore up the fantasy of a comfortable, self-contained body that does not have to reckon with temperature. At the same time that air conditioning makes temperature a non-issue in (some) people's daily lives, thermoceptionor the sensory perception of temperatureis being carefully studied and exploited as a tool of marketing, social control, and labor management. Yet air conditioning isn't for everybody: its reliance on carbon fuels divides the world into habitable, climate-controlled bubbles and increasingly uninhabitable environments where AC is unavailable. Hsuan Hsu''s Air Conditioning<Trade ReviewA cool blast of discomforting brilliance, Air Conditioning examines the conditioning of our indoor and interior climates of work, domesticity, and consumption. It is not inward looking to the sealed boxes and bubbles of air-conditioned detachment, but focused on the complex exchanges and inequalities involved in sustaining comfortable places, cooled bodies and technologies by making other places, and other (often poor and racialised) lives, uncomfortable and unliveable. Hsu’s book hums, ventilating ideas in an insistent, vital tone to show how this ordinary object, submerged within walls and behind vents, has mattered so much to us. * Peter Adey, Royal Holloway University of London, and author of Air (2014) *Hsuan L. Hsu demonstrates how air conditioning has radically transformed how we think, feel, and relate to others. After reading this book, you'll never be as comfortable in an air-conditioned room again – and that's exactly the point. * Bharat Venkat, Associate Professor of Society & Genetics, History, and Anthropology, Director of the UCLA Heat Lab, and author of At the Limits of Cure (2021) *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Why Air Conditioning? 1. Thermal Comfort 2. Bubbles: A Partial Typology 3. Weathermaking; Vicious Cycles 4. Cold Storage 5. The Racialization of Cooling 6. Global AC and the Great Uncooled Conclusion: Bursting Our Bubbles Index

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Book SynopsisEugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the fates of three men and three women. It was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.

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Book SynopsisJeff Jarvis holds the Leonard Tow Chair in Journalism Innovation and directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. He was creator and founding managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, TV critic for TV Guide and People, Sunday editor of the New York Daily News, a media columnist for The Guardian, and president and creative director of Advance.net. He blogs at Buzzmachine.com, cohosts the podcast This Week in Google, and is the author of five books: What Would Google Do? (2009), Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live (2011), Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Futures for News (2014), and Magazine (forthcoming, 2023) in Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series.

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Book SynopsisA group biography of five women who played path-breaking roles in the transcendentalist movementIn November 1839, a group of young women in Boston formed a conversation society to answer the great questions of special importance to women: What are we born to do? How shall we do it? The lives and works of the five women who discussed these questions are at the center of Bright Circle, a group biography of remarkable thinkers and artists who played pathbreaking roles in the transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism remains the most important literary and philosophical movement to have originated in the United States. Most accounts of it, however, trace its emergence to a group of young intellectuals (primarily Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau) dissatisfied with their religious, literary, and social culture. Yet there is a forgotten history of transcendentalism--a submerged counternarrative--that features a network of fiercely intelligent women who were central to the development of the movement even as they found themselves silenced by their culturally-assigned roles as women. Bright Circle is intended to reorient our understanding of transcendentalism: to help us see the movement as a far more collaborative and interactive project between women and men than is commonly understood. It recounts the lives of Mary Moody Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Lydia Jackson Emerson, and Margaret Fuller as they developed crucial ideas about the self, nature, and feeling even as they pushed their male counterparts to consider the rights of enslaved people of color and women. Many ideas once considered original to Emerson and Thoreau are shown to have originated with women who had little opportunity of publicly expressing them. Together, the five women of Bright Circle helped form the foundations of American feminism.

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Book SynopsisSearching for perfect book lovers gifts? Rejoice! Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany, is a love letter to all things bookish. Author Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. It''s a must-have for every book collection, and makes a wonderful literary gift for book lovers, writers, and more. Readers of Jane Mount''s Bibliophile will delight in: Touring the world''s most beautiful bookstores Testing their knowledge of the written word with quizzes Finding their next great read in lovingly curated stacks of books Sampling the most famous fictional meals Peeking inside the workspaces of their favorite authors  A source of endless inspiration, literary facts and recommendations: Bibliophile is pure bookish joy and sure to enchant book clubbers, English majors, poetry devotees, aspiring writers, and any and all who identify as book lovers.If you have read or own: I''d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life; The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, and Civilization; or How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines; then you will want to read and own Jane Mount''s Bibliophile.More from Jane Mount: Coauthored with Jamise Harper (founder of the Diverse Spines book community), Bibliophile: Diverse Spines is a richly illustrated and vastly inclusive collection uplifts the works of authors who are often underrepresented in the literary world. A perfect companion to Bibliophile and Bibliophile Reader''s Journal.Trade Review"At the heart of this handsomely produced, literary treasure trove of a book are 50 lovingly created book stacks of suggested reads, organised by theme, including 19th century classics, favourite fantasy novels, coming-of-age novels, children's picture books, feminist must-reads and essential cookbooks." -- The Bookseller“Bibliophile…. is one of the season’s standout gift selections.” -- BookPage"Jane’s fascinating chapters are well-researched, well-written and incredibly up-to-date and varied, so it makes a great read as well as a beautiful object." -- Pretty Books

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Book SynopsisThis book explains how and why our brains think in stories. Angus Fletcher, an expert in neuroscientific approaches to narrative, identifies this capacity as “storythinking.”Trade ReviewFletcher’s done it again. His polymathic erudition and word-wizardry elegance pull off the equivalent of a Copernican revolution in our understanding of storytelling—in all its resplendent iterations. With Storythinking he invites us on an extraordinary odyssey that enriches understanding of our deep, instinctive impulse to create stories as makers and transformers of our world. Storythinking is nothing less than a cosmological paradigm shift that puts story making and thinking at the center of all that we do. -- Frederick Luis Aldama, award-winning author and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, UT AustinAngus Fletcher explains why effective narrative prioritizes the unique, shifts viewpoints, and encourages conflict. Not for their own sake. It makes a writer create and clarify more thoughtful ideas and leads readers to intuit and retain the message. Both revelatory and pragmatic, and so gracefully explained. -- Shane Greenstein, author of How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New NetworkStorythinking is absolutely excellent: a much-needed reminder of and expansion on the transformative power of story, story as an enriched form of learning and as a valid epistemology. The book is a lovely, readable addition to academic and public life. I am eager to see the use of story resurrected! -- Lisa Miller, Ph.D., Professor & Founder, Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Teachers College, Columbia UniversityStory is a basic mental operation. Most of our experience, knowledge, and thinking is formed and organized by story: prediction, evaluation, planning, explanation, agents and actors, processes, goals. Story is an indispensable element of creativity. Human beings project from story to story and blend stories to create new concepts, new proposals, new science. How can we push the cognitive science of story forward? Fletcher, in this captivating and inspiring new book, leads the way. -- Mark Turner, author of The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and LanguageThe quickest way to elicit a scoff from 'serious thinkers' is to mention 'story'. But as someone who has built a career as a science communicator, who consistently straddles the line between art and science, and whose work is grounded in neuroscience, I know intuitively that storytelling is fundamental to how we think. Finally, Angus Fletcher brings his deep understanding of narrative together with his keen scientific mind to explain why we think in stories, why embracing story structure is the way forward, and how stories provide an architecture to thought as powerful and important as logic. Read this book. -- Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of San Francisco[Storythinking] is a most unusual book, plumbing the depths of history to find where philosophy went off the rails, examining neurobiology for insight into creativity, and festooned with stories about great characters all the way through. I can honestly report I’ve never read anything like it. And that’s a good thing. * The Straight Dope *Table of Contents1. Story2. Story and Thinking3. The Origin of Story4. Why Our Schools Teach Logic, Not Story5. The Limits of Logic—or Why We Still Need Storythinking6. The Brain Machinery of Storythinking7. Improving Storythinking8. Storythinking for Personal Growth9. Storythinking for Social Growth10. Story’s Answer to the Meaning of LifeCoda: Conversations with a StorythinkerNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis volume offers excellent value by bringing together four of the most popular, most frequently studied and performed, city comedies by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson and their contemporaries. Each of the plays features tradesmen - a shoemaker, goldsmith, merchant, shop-keepers - and depicts bustling city life.Table of ContentsThe Shoemaker's Holiday ; Eastward Ho ; Every Man In His Humour ; The Roaring Girl

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Book SynopsisWhen an essay is due and dreaded exams loom, this book offers students what they need to succeed. It provides chapter-by-chapter analysis, explanations of key themes, motifs and symbols, a review quiz, and essay topics. It is suitable for late-night studying and paper writing.

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Book SynopsisWrite clearer business documents more efficientlyThis brand new self-study book is the ideal way for business people to refine and perfect their written English. It is aimed particularly at executives who communicate in written English frequently or work in foreign or multinational companies.Collins English for Business is a new series of self-study skills books which focus on the language you really need to do business in English wherever you are in the world. Each title includes tips on how to communicate effectively and how to communicate inter-culturally. Other titles in the series: Speaking and Listening.Powered by COBUILD using the real language of business EnglishContents: Twenty 4-page units featuring key areas, such as Getting the Right Tone, Linking Ideas, Writing Quickly and Simply, Dealing with Difficult Issues and Editing the Language.Each unit contains:- Exercises focused on written texts, vocabulary or key structures- Grammar tips- Key phrasesReference section with keyTrade ReviewBEBC Book of the month: This new 124-page book aims to help business students write clear documents and is full of sound advice. ‘Writing’ certainly provides a wealth of relevant tasks: it is especially good for self-study. The ‘best practice’ section on email etiquette is excellent, and the many ‘cultural tips’ boxes are useful. One nice feature is the inclusion of memorable quotes about writing that introduce each unit. Recommended. (Reviews by Pete Sharma for the Bournemouth English Book Centre) ‘Finally, modern, well-written and practical Business English texts that are perfect for reference and/or classroom use.’ Peter A. Lewis-Watts, Certified ESL Instructor, Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

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Book SynopsisShakespeare everyone can understandnow in new DELUXE editions! Why fear Shakespeare? By placing the words of the original play next to line-by-line translations in plain English, these popular guides make Shakespeare accessible to everyone. They introduce Shakespeare's world, significant plot points, and the key players. And now they feature expanded literature guide sections that help students study smarter, along with links to bonus content on the Sparknotes.com website. A Q&A, guided analysis of significant literary devices, and review of the play give students all the tools necessary for understanding, discussing, and writing about King Lear. The expanded content includes:Five Key Questions: Five frequently asked questions about major moments and characters in the play. What Does the Ending Mean?: Is the ending sad, celebratory, ironic . . . or ambivalent? Plot Analysis: What is the play about? How is the story told, and what are the main themes? Why do the characters behav

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Book SynopsisEven though Charlotte Bronte uses fictional names, it is possible to roughly locate the places she so vividly describes in her beloved novel from 1847. This illustrated map shows the places Jane Eyre visits and it also features an illustrated map of the novel's main characters.?Contains an illustrated map, not the full text. A3-format, folded to A6-format. Printed on recycled paper.

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Book SynopsisBorn in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. His writings inspired the Humanist movement and, subsequently, the Renaissance, but few figures are as complex or as misunderstood. He was a devotee of the ancient pagan Roman world and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet at times an intensely private and almost misanthropic man. He believed life on earth was little more than a transitory pilgrimage, and took himself as his most important subject-matter. Christopher S. Celenza provides the first general account of Petrarch's life and work in English in over thirty years, and considers how his reputation and identity have changed over the centuries. He brings to light Petrarch's unrequited love for his poetic muse, Laura, the experiences of his university years, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking toward antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch's Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a paradoxical figure: a man of mystique, historical importance and endless fascination.Trade Review'Complexities of interpretation are food and drink to Petrarchan scholars, and Christopher Celenza tucks into them with quiet determination in his short life-and-works overview . . . Celenza's book introduces us to the breadth of Petrarch's intellectual world.' - Charles Nicholl, London Review of Books; 'Celenza's account, easily the best and most accessible life of Petrarch to appear in English in a century . . . ranges easily over the whole of the poet's life and times, following him in the "wanderings" Celenza describes as characterising Petrarch's somewhat peripatetic career in the service of the wealthy Visconti family and others. The book's main strength is its literary sensitivity; Celenza finds echoes of Petrarch's life in a far wider array of his writings than marquee sonnets - his various treatises, essays, and Latin verse all receive refreshingly intelligent integration into the broader narrative . . . the book's most memorable Petrarch is also its best achievement: the man himself, querulous, self-doubting, eager for fame but distrustful of it. That Petrarch very much does speak to our own age, and in these pages by Celenza, he finally gets a life of his own.' - The National; '[Petrarch] himself turned again and again in his writings to the flaws of humanity. Celenza exposes the Italian writer's flaws throughout his book, while simultaneously eliciting pity and respect. If he's a "misunderstood" man, then this book makes us want to understand him, contradictions and all.' - Times Higher Education; 'The entire book shines with Celenza's close attention to historical and philological detail, his superb textual and contextual analyses, and his deep understanding of how much Petrarch's legacy contributed to European cultural life. This brief review can barely suggest the subtlety with which the author interweaves such familiar texts as the poet's account of climbing Mount Ventoux with his evolving idea of Italy, and such ongoing endeavours as the poet's incursions into Italian verse with his efforts to secure a political future for Italy. Though designed for and accessible to a wide readership, the book will delight Petrarchan specialists with up-to-date nuggets of scholarly information, smart insights into cultural contexts, and powerful reinterpretations of landmark texts.' - Renaissance and Reformation; '[a] well-informed yet highly readable and elegant presentation . . . an impressive publication with which Celenza has set a standard for future research that will not be easy to surpass, when it comes to outlining Petrarch's intellectual profile both from the perspective of his life and work.' - Bernhard Huss, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift; 'The Epilogue connects several facets of Petrarch's posthumous reputation, reviewing his identities as a Latinist, classicist and Tuscan love-poet, and arguing that his complex personality "speaks to our age more than ever". For scholars hoping to join that Petrarchan dialogue, Celenza's biography will serve as a vital interlocutor.' - Forum for Modern Language Studies; 'No one who wants an up-to-date introduction to Petrarch will do better than Christopher Celenza's life and letters treatment, Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer, beautifully printed by Reaktion Books. The prose is direct, demotic, and engaging, sometimes professorial, but pleasantly professorial.' - Brian Copenhaver, Journal of Modern History; 'The book on my table is beautiful, on the inside as well as the outside. And it is not only attractive to look at, it is also well written - a pleasure to read . . . This is a book that is meant to read from start to finish, rather than as a reference work; reading it is a little like walking through a labyrinth, or solving puzzles (which the present writer at least loves doing). It is stimulating and it gives you new ideas.' - Bryn Mawr Classical Review; 'not least among this book's virtues is the wealth of color illustrations, which include not only portraits of the poet and photographs of important Petrarchan sites, but also copies of manuscripts owned, annotated, or written by Petrarch, as well as later editions of his works. For the uninitiated, these images and their commentary grant special access into Petrarch's own reading and writing habits. Combined with the author's breadth of reference and limpid prose style, they make this book a pleasurable and accessible guide to Petrarch for the twenty-first-century neophyte.' - Speculum; 'The striking appeal of Christopher Celenza's study is how the scattered worlds of Petrarch are brought together in vigorous unity - the passionate classicist haunted by a yearning for modernity, the Tuscan love poet whose melodious sonnets for Laura would be imitated for centuries, the restless Augustinian pilgrim, and the self-conscious yet enigmatic spider in a network of powerful friends and acquaintances. In his elegant and poetic style, Celenza combines reader-friendliness with scholarly sophistication and depth. This is a timely intellectual biography written by one of today's leading Renaissance scholars.' - Professor Unn Falkeid, University of Oslo, author of The Avignon Papacy Contested: An Intellectual History from Dante to Catherine of Siena

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Book SynopsisSnort up Cocaine Nights. It's disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant-garde writers into a hatted cock' Will SelfFive people die in an unexplained house fire in the Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar, an exclusive enclave for the rich, retired British, centred on the thriving Club Nautico. The club manager, Frank Prentice, pleads guilty to charges of murder yet not even the police believe him. When his Charles arrives to unravel the truth, he gradually discovers that behind the resort's civilized façade flourishes a secret world of crime, drugs and illicit sex.At once an engrossing mystery and a novel of ideas, Cocaine Nights' is a stunningly original work, a vision of a society coming to terms with a life of almost unlimited leisure.This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard's works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Neil Gaiman, Zadie Smith, John Lanchester and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.Trade Review‘Utterly compulsive’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Snort up “Cocaine Nights”. It’s disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant-garde writers into a hatted cock’ Will Self ‘The possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination – and a national treasure’ Guardian ‘Guaranteed to keep you reading into the early hours’ Sunday Times ‘Thrillingly wired … dazzlingly original’ Independent ‘The terrifying thing about Ballard is his logic; is this science fiction or history written ahead of its time?’ Len Deighton

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Book SynopsisOur brand-new York Notes for GCSE Workbooks offer a wide range of write-in tasks and exercises to boost your students' knowledge of the text and help them practise for the new GCSE (9-1) English Literature exams.Table of Contents Part 1: Getting Started Part 2: Plot and Action Part 3: Characters Part 4: Key Contexts and Themes Part 5: Form, Structure and Language Part 6: Progress Booster

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Book SynopsisBoost your confidence with helpful advice and practice for the Cambridge English A2 Key for Schools qualification.With fun activities to build students' skills and vocabulary, Practice for A2 Key for Schools (KET for Schools), gives students the confidence to succeed. It contains: 20 units featuring topics and vocabulary taken from the official 2020 Cambridge Vocabulary List. The exercises cover: Vocabulary, Spelling, Grammar and the 4 skills: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. 500 words from the official 2020 Cambridge Vocabulary List. Updated for the new exam. Answer key, audio scripts and word lists included at the back of the book. Accompanying audio, provided free online, supports the Listening and Speaking exercises. This also helps students' pronunciation Tips boxes offer advice on how to do well in the exam. Sample Writing and Speaking answers included in the answer key.

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Book SynopsisIn 1593 Shakespeare awoke and found himself famous. Lines from his comic, erotic, tragic poem Venus and Adonis were on everyone's lips.The appearance in 1594 of the darkly reflective and richly descriptive Rape of Lucrece confirmed his fame as 'Sweet Master Shakespeare', Elizabethan England's most brilliant non-dramatic poet. Shorter poems in this volume testify further to Shakespeare's versatility and to his poetic fame. Some, like the much-debated 'Phoenix and Turtle', pose problems of meaning; others raise questions about authorship and authenticity. Detailed annotation and a full Introduction seek to resolve such difficulties while also locating Shakespeare's poems in their literary context, which includes his own career as a playwright.Trade Review'Shakespeare scholars will be indebted to the editors not only for fine textual and editorial work but also for a number of astute interpretations.' Project Muse (2009)

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Book SynopsisThis volume ranges from studies of Baudelaire, Brecht, and the historian Carl Jochmann to appraisals of photography, film, and poetry. At their core is the question of how art adapts to survive and thrive in an age of violence and repression.Trade ReviewThe variety of subjects and the grace of a style that shines though even in translation help explain Benjamin's reputation as one of our... shrewdest commentators on literature and culture. -- Frank Day * South Caroline Review *Harvard's systematic presentation of the work of German cultural critic Benjamin has proved a revelation...This is another splendid volume. * Publishers Weekly *Readers new to Benjamin will find this a welcome introduction to a challenging but rewarding writer. Those already familiar with his work will be grateful to be reminded, once again, of the wisdom of his maxim, "all the decisive blows are struck left-handed." -- Graham McCann * Financial Times *The edition at hand...represents the first serious attempt to present his works with systematic chronology, judicious but inclusive selection, and sensitively accurate translation. The effect is nothing less than electric. -- Peter Brier * Macgrill's Literary Annual *The latest volume of Havard's majestic annoted edition [is] exhilarating...You feel smarter just holding this book in your hand. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post Book World *Whenever [Benjamin] turned his incisive gaze...the clarity of morning's first light shines forth. -- Haim Chertok * Jerusalem Post *A glance at the table of contents...shows us at once Benjamin's provocativeness and his infinite variety. -- Marshall Berman * The Nation *There is nothing like Benjamin, and I can hardly imagine a more rewarding book being published this year. -- David Wheatley * Irish Times (Dublin) *The final volume in this collection of the German philosopher's writing, this title covers the last three years of Benjamin's life and is masterfully translated, edited, and annotated. Presented here are Benjamin's grandest themes: the arcades of Paris, Baudelaire, the concept of remembrance, and materialist theology. Also included is the third version of Benjamin's most famous essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility," which was unpublished in the author's lifetime. This essay alone makes the volume indispensable for any scholar of interwar literature, philosophy, or modern European thought. Together with the first three volumes in the set (1996-2002), this is one of the most remarkable editorial achievements in contemporary thought and politics. -- M. Uebel * Choice *Walter Benjamin's Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938-40 brings to a conclusion the magisterial series published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. -- Ciaran Carson * The Guardian *First things first: this is a magnificent volume. Translating the work of a gifted translator is undoubtedly a somewhat daunting task...Benjamin’s Selected Writings is probably the most outstanding editorial achievement in modern cultural history and political thought that has been published in the last few years. Especially intellectual and social historians of early-twentieth-century Europe, who have traditionally not always paid much attention to Benjamin because of the latter’s appropriation by literary theory, now have every reason to take Benjamin’s writings more seriously. -- Christian J. Emden * H-Net *First things first: this is a magnificent volume. Translating the work of a gifted translator is undoubtedly a somewhat daunting task...Benjamin’s Selected Writings is probably the most outstanding editorial achievement in modern cultural history and political thought that has been published in the last few years. Especially intellectual and social historians of early-twentieth-century Europe, who have traditionally not always paid much attention to Benjamin because of the latter’s appropriation by literary theory, now have every reason to take Benjamin’s writings more seriously. -- Christian J. Emden * H-Net *Table of ContentsFRUITS OF EXILE, 1938 (PART 2) 1. The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire 2. Blanqui 3. The Study Begins with Some Reflections on the Influence of Les Fleurs du mal 4. Exchange with Theodor W. Adorno on "The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire" 5. Review of Reneville's Experience poetique 6. Review of Freund's Photographie en France au dix-neuvieme siecle 7. Reviw of Francesco's Macht des Charlatans 8. A chronicle of Germany's Unemployed 9. A Novel of German Jews THEORY OF REMEMBRANCE, 1939 1. Review of Honigswald's Philosophie und Sprache 2. Review of Sternberger's Panorama 3. Review of Beguin's Ame romantique et le reve 4. Note on Brecht 5. Central Park 6. Exchange with Theodor W. Adorno on "The Flaneur" Section of "The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire" 7. Commentary on Poems by Brecht 8. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Third Version 9. Germans of 1789 10. What is the Epic Theater? (II) MATERIALIST THEOLOGY, 1940 1. On Some Motifs in Baudelaire 2. "The Regression of Poetry," by Carl Gustav Jochmann 3. Curriculum Vitae (VI): Dr. Walter Benjamin 4. On Scheerbart 5. On the Concept of History 6. Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" 7. Letter to Theodor W. Adorno on Baudelaire, Goerge and Hofmannsthal A Note on the Texts Chronology List of writings in Volumes 1-4 Index

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Power, corruption and betrayal are at the heart of Shakespeare's most well-known historical and political drama. As Julius Caesar moves closer to securing power for himself and is perceived by some as a threat to Roman citizens, his senators plot to bring about his downfall. Caesar's assassination leads to civil war rather than peace and the play explores the subsequent deaths of the conspirators Brutus and Cassius.Shakespeare's contemporaries would have spotted the playwright's attempts to use the shift from republican to imperial Rome to highlight the political situation of the Elizabethans at the time. Featuring some of the most powerfully resonant and rousing speeches of any of Shakespeare's plays, Julius Caesar remains one of his most well-loved historical tragedies.

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Book Synopsis''But I must stop now. I can no longer speak for tears - and my client has ordered that tears are not to be used in his defence.''Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world: he dominated the Roman courts, usually appearing for the defence. His speeches are masterpieces of persuasion: compellingly written, emotionally powerful, and somtimes hilariously funny. This book presents five of his most famous defences: of Roscius, falsely accused of murdering his father; of the consul-elect Murena, accused of electoral bribery; of the poet Archias, on a citizenshiup charge; of Caelius, ex-lover of Clodia Metelli, on charges of violence; and of Milo, for mudering Cicero''s hated enemy Clodius. Cicero''s clients were rarely whiter-than-white; but so seductive is his oratory that the reader cannot help taking his side. In these speeches we are plunged into some of the most exciting courtroom dramas of all time.These new translations preserve Cicero''s literary artistry and emotional force, and achieve new standards of accuracy. Each speech has its own introduction, and a general introduction discusses Cicero''s public career and the criminal courts. The substantial explanatory notes guide the reader through the speeches, and offer new scholarship presented in a clear way.

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Book SynopsisHeroic epic of the eighth to the fifth century BCE includes poems about Hercules and Theseus, as well as the Theban Cycle and the Trojan Cycle. Genealogical epic of that archaic era includes poems that create prehistories for Corinth and Samos. These works are an important source of mythological record.Trade ReviewA magnificent achievement...As one would expect of a scholar of West's distinction these are accurate, keenly alive to each nuance of the Greek...Scholars owe a considerable debt of gratitude to West for [this] new Loeb. -- Richard Whitaker * Scholia Reviews *

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