Literary studies: fiction Books

Book Synopsis''Rus! Russ!...Everything within you is open, desolate, and flat; your squat towns barely protrude above the level of your wide plains, marking them like little dots, like specks; here is nothing to entice and fascinate the onlooker''s gaze. Yet whence this unfathomable, uncanny force that draws me to you?'' Although Dead Souls (1842) was largely composed by Gogol during self-imposed exile in Italy in the late 1830s, his last work remains to this day the most essentially Russian of all the great novels in Russian literature. As we follow its hero Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned unscrupulous confidence man, about the Russian countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise, there unfolds before us a gallery of characters worthy in comic range of Chaucer, Rabelais, Fielding and Sterne. With its rich and ebullient language, ironic twists and startling juxtapositions, Dead Souls stands as one of the most dazzling and poetic masterpieces of the nineteenth century. This brilliant new translation by Christopher English is complemented by a superb introductory essay by the pre-eminent Gogol scholar, Robert Maguire. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAvailable for the first time in paperback, this is the pre-eminent critical study, and exploration, of how myth and legend played such a significant role in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.The Song of Middle-earth takes a fresh look at The Lord of the Rings, digging deep into the foundations of Tolkien's world to reveal the complex tapestry of history and mythology that lies behind his stories.The charge that Tolkien''s work was merely derivative that he extracted elements from other mythologies and incorporated them into his own fiction is dismissed in favour of a fascinating examination of the rich historical background to Middle-earth.From the mythic tradition of the Tales told in The Book of Lost Tales: I to the significance of oral storytelling throughout the history of Middle-earth, this book examines the common themes of mythology found within Tolkien's work.In doing so, The Song of Middle-earth demonstrates how Tolkien's desire to create a new mythology for England is not only apTrade Review.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn energizing real-time journey through the translation of Never Did the Fire and the process of literary translation.In Catching Fire , the translation of Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire unfolds in real time as a conversation between works of art, illuminating both in the process. The problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language—what happens when you meet a pun? a double entendre?—are met by translator Daniel Hahn's humor, deftness, and deep appreciation for what sets Eltit's work apart, and his evolving understanding of what this particular novel is trying to do.Trade Review"A frank, forensic diary that describes what happens when we set aside metaphors and begin the Sisyphean task of translation." —The Spectator"Hahn is so smart and neurotic and funny." —New York Times"Warm, witty, intellectual yet down to earth, Hahn has written a unique book." —The Monthly Booking"A book full of insights into what goes on behind the translation scenes." —Tony's Reading List

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhen the aristocratic Lady Isabel abandons her husband and children for her wicked seducer, more is at stake than moral retribution. This edition returns for the first time to the racy, slang-ridden narrative of the first edition, rather than the subsequent stylistically 'improved' versions hitherto reproduced by modern editors.Trade ReviewExcellent introduction, nicely presented.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn absolute belter of a biography' MARINA HYDEA Times Literary Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2022An LA Times Best Book of the Year 2022An intimate, revealing and profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea. An obsessive and troubled genius, Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling and unnerving writers of the twentieth century. Memories of a conflicted Caribbean childhood haunt the four fictions that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England. Rhys's experiences of heartbreak, poverty, notoriety, breakdowns and even imprisonment all became grist for her writing, forming an iconic Rhys woman' whose personality vulnerable, witty, watchful and angry was often mistaken, and still is, for a self-portrait.Many details of Rhys's life emerge from her memoir, Smile Please and the stories she wrote throughout her long and challenging career. But it's a shock to discover that no biographer until now has researcheTrade Review‘This is a first-class life and a rollicking read. Seymour skilfully interweaves the autographical stories and novels with the people and fortunes in Rhys’s crazily adventurous life. She’s warmly sympathetic to the young ingénue of 17, and only slightly less so to the old bat of 87. She’s also the only Rhys biographer who travelled to Dominica to see what it was about the island — its colours, smells, conflicted history and voodoo sorcery — that haunted Rhys all her days but fired her imagination. The result is close to a masterpiece’John Walsh, Sunday Times ‘Her intimate and insightful biography … certainly reads like a novel. [Seymour] is a bewitching writer … gives us Rhys in all her glory’Laura Freeman, The Times ‘The superb achievement of Miranda Seymour’s painstaking and compassionate new biography is to dispel forever the idea that Rhys was simply a naïve chronicler of her own experiences … in terms of sheer technique, she was a virtuoso’Spectator ‘[A] slyly compelling new biography of Jean Rhys … The narrative has the tension of a thriller as Rhys struggles to finish Wide Sargasso Sea’Rachel Cooke, Observer ‘Seymour,a masterful biographer… tells her story with empathy, precision and a keen eye for the telling detail’LA Times, A Book of the Year 2022 ‘An exhaustive, definitive ride around both the idea and the reality of Jean Rhys … Seymour addresses a writer and woman who is at once self-absorbed and thoughtful, sardonic and sensitive’Siobhán Kane, Irish Times ‘An absolute belter of a biography . . . don’t read if you are afraid of monsters’ Marina Hyde, Favourite Reads of 2022 ‘A very impressive piece of work. A long and tangled life most authoritatively pieced together. I was completely absorbed’Michael Frayn, author of Noises Off

Read more less

Book SynopsisCollins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins hasadapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These readers have beencarefully adapted using the Collins COBUILD grading scheme to ensure that the language is at thecorrect level for an intermediate learner. This book is Level 4 in the Collins ELT Readers series. Level4 is equivalent to CEF level B2 with a word count of 20,000 26,000 words.Each book includes: Full reading of the adapted version available for free online Helpful notes on characters Cultural and historical notes relevant to the plot A glossary of the more difficult wordsHercule Poirot is enjoying a relaxing holiday when a glamorous actress arrives to join their group then just two days later she is found murdered on a quiet, shaded beach. In

Read more less

Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.'For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive.When a strange, meteor-like object lands in the English countryside, the inhabitants of Earth find themselves victims of a terrible attack. Ruthless Martians, armed with heat rays and poisonous smoke, are intent on destroying humanity. As the unnamed narrator struggles to find his way across decimated wastelands, the fate of the planet hangs in the balanceFirst serialised in 1897, The War of the Worlds terrified and thrilled its readers, the fictional alien invasion evoking a new and hair-raising idea: we are not alone. The imagination of H.G. Wells has had a lasting and significant impact on the science fiction genre, and continues to inspire the work of countless writers, artists and directors to this day.Trade Review‘groundbreaking … a true classic that has pointed the way not just for science-fiction writers, but for how we as a civilisation might think of ourselves’ Guardian ‘[Wells’ work is] astonishingly rich in human and historical interest … he foresaw the invention of, among other things, television, tanks, aerial warfare and the atom bomb’ David Lodge ‘I personally consider the greatest of English living writers [to be] H. G. Wells’ Upton Sinclair

Read more less

Book SynopsisGraham Greene''s ''long journey through time'' began in 1904, when he was born into a tribe of Greenes based in Berkhamstead at the public school where his father was headmaster. In A Sort of Life Greene recalls schooldays and Oxford, adolescent encounters with psychoanalysis and Russian roulette, his marriage and conversion to Catholicism, and how he rashly resigned from The Times when his first novel, The Man Within was published in 1929. A Sort of Life reveals, brilliantly and compellingly, a life lived and an art obsessed by ''the dangerous edge of things''.Trade ReviewA great writer who spoke brilliantly to a whole generation -- Alec GuinnessThe setting of his life is beautifully observed and conveyed. I have never admired his writing more - the masterly skill and economy; the excitement he manages to pump, not just into the narrative, but into the very sentences, which throb and glow themselves * Observer *A subversive hero, self-consciously seeking out (in Browning's words) 'the dangerous edge of things,' who lived everywhere and nowhere, a man whom few people ever knew... Greene was a restless traveler, a committed writer, a terrible husband, an appalling father and an admitted manic-depressive * New York Times *This is the work of a remarkable man determined to show he is not particularly remarkable...his fame is secure * Daily Telegraph *Greene wrote some of the most commanding English novels of the twentieth century and some of the slickest commercial thrillers * Newsday *

Read more less

Book SynopsisOrwell has become one of the most potent and symbolic figures in western political thought. Even the adjective ''Orwellian'' is now a byword for a particular way of thinking about life, literature and language yet, despite this iconic status, the man who was born Eric Blair in 1903 remains an enigma. Drawing on a mass of previously unseen material, D J Taylor offers a strikingly human portrait of the writer too often embalmed as a secular saint. Here is a man who, for all his outward unworldliness, effectively stage-managed his own life; who combined chilling detachment with warmth and gentleness, disillusionment with hope; who battled through illness to produce two of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century. Moving and revealing, Taylor''s Orwell is the biography we have all been waiting for, as vibrant, powerful and resonant as its extraordinary hero.Trade ReviewTaylor wins the biographical contest...[He] is an accomplished literary critic and he illuminates Orwell's work in the context of his life elegantly and expertly * Guardian *Taylor's book has the unmistakable depth of flavour that comes from long, slow, careful cooking-pithy and fascinating -- Jan Dalley * Financial Times *Taylor writes with such skill and aplomb that it's impossible not to be swept along by the intelligence and observations * Independent on Sunday *Taylor's biography is a persuasive and profoundly moving exploration of the ways in which Orwell's work was constructed from the stones of a ruined life-[it] is likely to prove in many ways definitive * Daily Telegraph *Fetchingly original...Taylor's [biography] is pacy socio-journalism -- Ian Thomson * Scotland on Sunday *

Read more less

Book SynopsisBeecher Stowe's vivid descriptions uncover the harrowing situations faced by slaves in Civil War America.When a Kentucky farmer faces financial ruin, he reluctantly sells his slaves, and Uncle Tom finds himself the property of a cruel plantation owner, fighting for his freedom and ultimately, for his right to live. With a rich narrative and wonderfully realised characters, this is a panoramic, incredibly accomplished work. Originally published to much acclaim in 1852, it quickly established Harriet Beecher Stowe as one of America's most influential female novelists and was crucial in helping to secure the abolition of slavery.Trade ReviewIts power is that it never makes light of slavery and its attendant vast misery -- John Updike * New Yorker *A century and a half since its publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin retains a fascination for Americans… it stoked a furious hostility among many Americans to the continuation of slavery in their own Southern states * Daily Telegraph *The novel's impact was global… Among those who hailed it as a masterpiece were Ivan Turgenev, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy and George Eliot -- Gary Younge * Guardian *Explosive * Economist *

Read more less

Book SynopsisEasy to use in the classroom or as a tool for revision, Oxford Literature Companions provide student-friendly analysis of a range of popular A Level set texts. Each book offers a lively, engaging approach to the text, covering characterisation and role, genre, context, language, themes, structure and critical views, whilst also providing a range of varied and in-depth activities to deepen understanding and encourage close work wtih the text. Each book also includes a comprehensive Skills and Practice section, which provides detailed advice on assessment and a bank of exam-style questions and annotated sample student answers. This guide covers The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, is suitable for all exam boards and for the most recent AS/A level specifications.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe wise writer, I think, writes for the youth of his own generation, the critic of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.Following the education and young life of Amory Blaine, from indulged only child to disillusioned war veteran, This Side of Paradise is a thinly veiled account of Fitzgerald''s time as a Princeton undergraduate and an aspiring writer set against the turbulent background of adolescence, first loves, and the outbreak of World War I. Amory moves through a dynamic whirl of exuberant youth, university escapades and adventures home and abroad as one of a new, restless American generation.This Side of Paradise ensured immediate fame as well as notoriety for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not only Fitzgerald''s bestselling novel during his lifetime, it was also the work against which each of his later novels was measured. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of This Side of Paradise: without it, the writing career of one of the twentieth-century''s most popular

Read more less

Book SynopsisSerial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 18151848 proposes an entirely new way of reading the transition into the modern. It is the first book in a series of three which will take the reader up to the end of the First World War, moving from a focus on London to a global perspective. Serial Forms sets out the theoretical and historical basis for all three volumes. It suggests that, as a serial news culture and a stadial historicism developed together between 1815 and 1848, seriality became the dominant form of the nineteenth century. Through serial newsprint, illustrations, performances, and shows, the past and the contemporary moment enter into public visibility together. Serial Forms argues that it is through seriality that the social is represented as increasingly politically urgent. The insistent rhythm of the serial reorganizes time, recalibrates and rescales the social, and will prepare the way for the 1848 revolutions which are the subject of the next book. By placing their work back into the messy print and performance culture from which it originally appeared, Serial Forms is able to produce new and exciting readings of familiar authors such as Scott, Byron, Dickens, and Gaskell. Rather than offering a rarefied intellectual history or chopping up the period into Romantic' and Victorian', Clare Pettitt tracks the development of communications technologies and their impact on the ways in which time, history and virtuality are imagined.Trade ReviewIt is a valuable and original investigation of noncanonical serials in the early nineteenth century. It is also a significant contribution to the conversation about form, time, and politics that extends beyond seriality studies. * Robyn Warhol's, MLQ: A Journal of Literary History *This is both an exciting and a weighty book. It joins extensive archival knowledge with sharp theoretical insight to throw a new light on the emergence of the modern subject ... I am eager for the next installment. * Caroline Levine, Modern Philology *Pettitt expertly weaves together various strands to show how the growing infiltration of seriality into every aspect of culture forms 'the dynamic processes involved in calibrating a new form of social time'. [...] Serial Forms is a rich, textured study, and there are many byways of the argument not touched upon here that readers will find useful. * David E. Latané, Victorian Periodicals Review *In Pettitt's hands, serialization becomes not simply a subject for literary discussion, but is interpreted as a significant cultural movement which informed, and was informed by, the politics and people of the time. The result is an insightful and inspiring collection of chapters that broadens our knowledge of the subject and—appropriately in the spirit of serialization—whets our appetite for the next two books to follow. * Pete Orford, Dickens Quarterly *With its thrilling combination of small details and big insights, this book should attract a readership as wide and grateful as that achieved by Linda Hughes and Michael Lund's The Victorian Serial... I, for one, am eager for the next installment. * Matthew Poland, review19 *The greatest strength of the book is its meticulous research of periodicals,...Serial Forms offers a refreshingly material engagement with affect studies. * William Lee Hughes, Victorian Studies Vol 64.4 *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Serial Forms 1: Yesterday's News 2: Scott Unbound 3: Live Byron 4: Vesuvius on the Strand 5: Scalar: Pugin, Carlyle, Dickens 6: History in Miniature 7: Biopolitics of Seriality Conclusion: 1848 and Serial Revolutions

Read more less

Book Synopsis`Other works may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable vivacity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it.'' (Jerome, Preface to Three Men in a Boat). Three Men in a Boat describes a comic expedition by middle-class Victorians up the Thames to Oxford. It provides brilliant snap-shots of London''s playground in the late 1880s, where the fashionable steam-launches of river swells encounter the hired skiffs of city clerks. The medley of social vignettes, farcical incidents, descriptions of river fashions, and reflections on the Thames''s history, is interspersed with humorous anecdotes told by a natural raconteur. Three Men on the Bummel records a similar escapade, a break from the claustrophobia of suburban life some ten years later; their cycling tour in the Black Forest, at the height of the new bicycling craze, affords Jerome the opportunity for a light-hearted scrutiny of German soc

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWho had birds called Death, Wigs and Spinach? How do you spell the noise of a door slamming? Whose working title was The Chronic Argonauts?Henry Eliot - author, editor and insatiable bookworm - has ransacked the libraries and archives of world literature, compiling hundreds of bookish lists. This eclectic gallimaufry showcases his favourites: we witness the tragic ends of the Ancient Greek tragedians, learn the name of George Orwell''s pet cockerel and rummage through Joan Didion''s travelling bag; we consider the history of literary fart jokes, orbit the Shakespearean moons of Uranus and meet several pigs with wings. From the sublime to the ridiculous - and everything in between ­- Eliot''s lists, recommendations and nuggets of trivia will delight, inspire and surprise anyone who loves reading.Beautifully presented with supplementary maps and illustrations, Henry Eliot''s Book of Bookish Lists is the essential gift for book-lovers.Trade ReviewI loved this so much. Lists for bookish folk, filled with things I had not known or dreamed -- Neil GaimanTotally enthralling... The perfect bedside book -- Jilly CooperAn eccentric idea beautifully executed -- Louis de BernièresIf there was a list of books about lists, Eliot's Book of Bookish Lists would be top -- Philip PullmanAn absolute delight - Borges meets Buzzfeed -- Tom HollandA gorgeous confection . . . How do I love this book? Let me list the ways . . . -- Chris RiddellBrimful of piquant and scrumptious surprises -- John LloydHours of innocent snacking -- Iain SinclairVery entertaining and sprightly -- Ian McKellenThoroughly enjoyable... As amusing as it is informing -- Michael PortilloBuried deep in the etymology of the word 'list' is the notion of pleasure. Mr Eliot's marvellous vade mecum reminds us why -- John MitchinsonI loved Eliot's book for its wit, learning, eccentricity and unrepentant bookishness -- Alan TaylorA magnificent labyrinth of literary trivia to get lost in . . . fun and fascinating things on every page -- Edward Brooke-HitchingA trove of treasures from start to finish -- Dennis DuncanDeliciously idiosyncratic -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Reading this book is like going on a literary Grand Tour . . . Essential for the pub quiz * Country Life *Eliot's books have been my equivalent of big game almanacs. This book is half a delight and half a gauntlet -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *The ultimate book for lovers of lists and literature . . . surprising, inspiring and amusing -- Denise O'Donoghue * Irish Examiner *

Read more less

Book SynopsisJonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. An award-winning novelist, biographer and critic, his novels include What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle. He lives in London.

Read more less

Book SynopsisJoseph Conradâs novella, Heart of Darkness, has fascinated critics and readers alike, engaging them in highly controversial debate as it deals with fundamental issues of good and evil, civilisation, race, love and heroism. This classic tale transcends the boundaries of time and place and has inspired famous film and television adaptations emphasising the cultural significance and continued relevance of the book.This guide to Conradâs captivating novel offers: an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of Heart of Darkness a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present a selection of new essays and reprinted critical essays on Heart of Darkness, by Ian Watt, Linda Dryden, Ruth Nadelhaft, J. Hillis Miller and Peter Brooks, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key critical approaches identified in the survey section Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Texts and Contexts 2: Critical History 3: Critical Readings 4: Adaptations 5: Further Reading and Web Resources Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe visionary masterpiece, tracing a riverboat crew''s dreamlike jungle voyage ...''My new all time favourite book ... A magnificent, breathtaking and terrifying novel.'' Tsitsi Dangarembga''An exhilarating experience ... Makes visions real and reality visions ... Genius.'' Jamaica Kincaid''A masterpiece: I love this book for its language, adventure and wisdoms.' Monique Roffey''Revel in the inviolate, ever-deepening mystery of Wilson Harris's work.'' Jeet Thayil''The Guyanese William Blake Such poetic intensity.'' Angela CarterI dreamt I awoke with one dead seeing eye and one living closed eye ...A crew of men are embarking on a voyage up a turbulent river through the rainforests of Guyana. Their domineering leader, Donne, is the spirit of a conquistador, obsessed with hunting for a mysterious woman and exploiting indigenous people as plantation labour. But their expedition is plagu

Read more less

Book SynopsisEnjoy daily distraction with this engaging Almanac.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe long-awaited biography of one of the great writers of the twentieth century - ''a wonderful blend of scholarly fact and juicy storytelling'' (Mail on Sunday).Muriel Spark ended was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Hers is a Cinderella story, the first thirty-nine years of which she presented in her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae (1992), politely blurring the intensity of her darker moments: her relations with her brother, mother, son, husband; a terrifying period of hallucinations and subsequent depression; and the disastrously misplaced love she had felt for two men she had wanted to marry, Howard Sergeant and Derek Stanford. Aged nineteen, Spark left Scotland to marry in Southern Rhodesia, escaping back to Britain on a troopship in 1944 after her divorce. Her son returned in 1945 to be brought up by her parents in Edinburgh while she established herself as a poet and critic in London. After becoming a Roman Catholic in 19Trade ReviewGripping; a rich, complex, quagmire of a book, Muriel Spark is worth the wait, witty, readable and well researched - about as satisfying as a literary biography can be -- Frances Wilson * Daily Telegraph *Stannard's triumph is to have produced an account that survived her scrutiny yet reveals her vanity and egotism so unmistakably * Sunday Times *A lively, engrossing and detailed tome * Sunday Telegraph *Stannard has got under Spark's skin about as deeply as anyone could -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *Spark invited the author to write her biography. In his hands scholasticism and sauce prove a fascinating, compelling mix * Huddersfield Daily Examiner *Stannard had unfettered access to Spark's archives and proves an adept biographer of the sparky and troubled author * The Times *Stannard is particularly strong on Spark as a novelist and on the intrigues of the American and British and publishing worlds * Irish Times *An exhaustive and fascinating story * Evening Standard *This fine life explains why Muriel Spark numbers among the crème de la crème of modern novelists ... [With its] many fine vignettes ... this is a biography that has been worth the long wait * Sunday Telegraph *Martin Stannard's biography will become the standard work on one of Britain's finest postwar writers * Observer *Precise and perceptive ... a pioneering biography * The Times *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis heartfelt gay memoir about an adult son uncovering his father’s secrets is “a cross between Dickens’s David Copperfield, Rousseau’s Confessions, and the new pornography” (Donald Windham).   When his father died, J. R. Ackerley was shocked to discover that he had led a secret life. And after Ackerley himself died, he left a surprise of his own—this coolly considered, unsparingly honest account of his quest to find out the whole truth about the man who had always eluded him in life. But Ackerley’s pursuit of his father is also an exploration of the self—making My Father and Myself a pioneering record, at once sexually explicit and emotionally charged, of life as a gay man. This witty, sorrowful, and beautiful book is a classic of twentieth-century memoir.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first English translation (by J.M.Q.Davies) of the complete short stories of Corfiot writer Konstantinos Theotokis. Often brutal, occasionally humorous stories of village life in Corfu in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With an Introduction and Notes by the translator.

Read more less

Book SynopsisElizabeth Bishop is increasingly recognised as one of the twentieth century''s most original writers. Consisting of thirty-five ground-breaking essays by an international team of authors, including biographers, literary critics, poets and translators, this volume addresses the biographical and literary inception of Bishop''s originality, from her formative upbringing in New England and Nova Scotia to long residences in New York, France, Florida and Brazil. Her poetry, prose, letters, translations and visual art are analysed in turn, followed by detailed studies of literary movements such as surrealism and modernism that influenced her artistic development. Bishop''s encounters with nature, music, psychoanalysis and religion receive extended treatment, likewise her interest in dreams and humour. Essays also investigate the impact of twentieth-century history and politics on Bishop''s life writing, and what it means to read Bishop via eco-criticism, postcolonial theory and queer studies.Trade Review'With imagination and precision, this first-rate collection of essays explores the varied contexts – geographical, familial, historical, artistic, intellectual, social, cultural and political – that influenced Elizabeth Bishop's literary career. Read in such diverse contexts, Bishop's work emerges as more complex, multi-faceted, and surprising than even long-term readers might expect. This book is a must-read for readers new to Bishop and for those that thought they knew her.' Susan Rosenbaum, University of Georgia'Like Bishop's writing itself, this volume is a miracle of composition. Simultaneously intimate and vast, local and distant, formally precise and wildly inventive, Cleghorn and Ellis pull off a nearly impossible trick. Their collection really does provide a 'context' for one of the twentieth century's most purposefully unsettled poetic voices. Framing and reframing Bishop's work against dozens of different shifting backgrounds, the collection somehow manages to pull it 'all together' to make 'just one'. I guarantee: anyone who has ever appreciated Bishop will appreciate this.' Alexander MacLeod, Saint Mary's University'… is a groundbreaking, comprehensive collection of essays that penetrates and reveals numerous facts of Elizabeth Bishop's life and legacy …' Tristan Beach, The Elizabeth Bishop Blog'Carefully edited with thoughtful consideration given to readability, this volume will be of great value to literary students and scholars … Recommended.' R. M. Roberts, Choice ConnectTable of ContentsIntroduction Angus Cleghorn and Jonathan Ellis; Part I. Places: 1. Nova Scotia Sandra Barry; 2. New England Heather Treseler; 3. New York Jo Gill; 4. Paris, France Lisa Goldfarb; 5. Florida Sarah Kennedy; 6. Brazil Neil Besner; Part II. Forms: 7. Lyric poetry Gillian White; 8. Prose Vidyan Ravinthiran; 9. Letters Langdon Hammer; 10. Translation Mariana Machova; 11. Visual art Linda Anderson; 12. Archives Bethany Hicok; Part III. Literary Contexts: 13. Romantic and Victorian poetry Peter Swaab; 14. Surrealism and the Avant-Garde Andrew Epstein; 15. Modernism Philip McGowan; 16. Mid-Century Poetics Kamran Javadizadeh; 17. Brazilian literature Maria Lúcia Milléo Martins; Part IV. Politics, Society and Culture: 18. War Charles Berger; 19. The cold war Steven Axelrod; 20. Music Christopher Spaide; 21. Psychoanalysis Lorrie Goldensohn; 22. Religion Cheryl Walker; 23. Anthropology Barbara Page; 24. Travel Jeffrey Gray; Part V. Identity: 25. Dreams Bonnie Costello; 26. Humor Rachel Trousdale; 27. Gender Deryn Rees-Jones; 28. Queerness Michael Snediker; 29. Race Sandeep Parmar; 30. Nature Angus Cleghorn; 31. Animals Marianne MacRae; Part VI. Reception and Criticism: 32. Bishop studies Thomas Travisano; 33. Criticism and reviews Jonathan Ellis; 34. 'My saving grace': On editing Elizabeth Bishop Lloyd Schwartz; 35. Bishop's influence Stephanie Burt.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis‘The most dazzling biography of a female writer to have come my way for a decade…' – Financial Times‘To be savoured for its vivid and sympathetic recreation of the tragic life and brilliant times of the gifted Mary Shelley’ – Times Literary Supplement ‘Brilliant and enthralling' – Independent On Sunday'Wonderfully vivid' – SpectatorThe definitive and richly woven biography of Mary Shelley, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein  The creator of the world’s most famous outsider became one herself . . . There is no more dramatic scene in literary history than the stormy night by Lake Geneva when Byron, Claire Clairmont, Polidori and the Shelleys met to talk of horror and the unexplained. From thaTrade Review‘The most dazzling biography of a female writer to have come my way for a decade… Here, for the first time, Shelley steps off the page as a living, thinking, suffering woman, fraught and caught in the web of her own intelligence.’ -- Jackie Wullschlager * Financial Times *‘To be savoured for its vivid and sympathetic recreation of the tragic life and brilliant times of the gifted Mary Shelley.’ * Times Literary Supplement *‘Brilliant and enthralling, this portrait illuminates Mary’s life in many unexpected ways.’ * Independent On Sunday *‘A wonderfully vivid, human and learned portrait of the woman who created Frankenstein, married Shelley, and, amazingly, survived.’ * Spectator *'Mary Shelley, Miranda Seymour’s affectionate and well-written biography, concisely sketches the background of scientific inquiry that influenced Shelley’s early intellectual development… Seymour keenly brings out how fraught Mary Shelley’s own life was with tragedies of childbirth and infant mortality… In 1818, the Shelleys moved to Italy…where Byron now was. They formed a tense and inbred circle, sharply evoked by Seymour: the women eyeing each other jealously, each serially or simultaneously in love with Shelley or Byron or both… Miranda Seymour is a novelist as well as an experienced biographer… She has vivid narrative gifts and a perceptive understanding of the main personalities.' -- New York Times Notable Books * The New York Times *'Splendid biography.' * The New Yorker *'Miranda Seymour’s lucid biography arrives as the general reader’s guide to Mary Shelley’s ascent to academic cult status… Seymour is persuasive.' * The Guardian *'Gracefully sweeping through the dramatic life of the woman behind history’s most legendary monster, Miranda Seymour unbuttons a world of brilliant literary figures in Mary Shelley and re-creates the imaginative time in which Frankenstein was born… The Mary we meet here, brilliantly brought to life by Seymour from previously unexplored sources, is flawed, brave, generous, and impetuous.' * Goodreads *'I envy any reader of this excellent biography who happens not to be very familiar with the lives of Shelley and the girl who eloped with him when she was sixteen.' -- Diana Athill * The Oldie *'The most thorough account of Shelley’s life…eminently readable.' * Choice *'A harrowing life, wonderfully retold.' -- Washington Post Best Books of the Year * The Washington Post Book World *'Seymour is adept at capturing the cultural climate and social context of the early nineteenth century in the major English and Italian settings of Shelley’s life story. She has done hard and valuable work in finely combining the correspondence of the many players in this story, and reconstructing the likeliest version of events---no mean feat with a circle, such as Shelley’s, that was rife with contention, backbiting and self-promotion.' * The Baltimore Sun *'One of the finest and most significant biographies of recent years.' * Library Journal *'Seymour’s book is a timeless representation of a woman who endured skewed public perceptions about herself and her loved ones.' * Commercial Appeal *'Mary’s tragic life story makes for a biography as intriguing as her masterpiece.' * The Oregonian *'Seymour’s scrupulous, almost anxiously tender portrait peels away the myths like layers of tissue paper shrouding a lost relic. This is a fine biography that gives us the dense background to Mary Shelley’s work while losing none of the searing glamour and pain of her sad, extraordinary life.' * The Sunday Times *

Read more less

Book SynopsisLooking across the cultural landscape of the twenty-first century, its literature, film, television, comic books, and other media, we can see multiple examples of what Shelley S. Rees calls a “changeling western,” what others have called “weird westerns,” and what Michael K. Johnson refers to as “speculative westerns”—that is, hybrid western forms created by merging the western with one or more speculative genres or subgenres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history.Speculative Wests investigates both speculative westerns and other speculative texts that feature western settings. Just as “western” refers both to a genre and a region, Johnson’s narrative involves a study of both genre and place, a study of the “speculative Wests” that have begun to emerge in contemporary texts such as the zombie-threatened California of Justina Ireland’s Deathless Divide (202Trade Review"This book will be of interest to readers from genre studies and beyond, notably those from ecocriticism, migration studies, Black studies, Indigenous studies, and even trauma studies."—Adrianna Michell, H-Environment"Johnson manages to give form, and conceptual cohesion to what most current criticism has only examined in studies with a narrower focus. For this, scholars and readers of westerns, science fiction, and speculative fiction, owe him a debt of gratitude."—Christopher Conway, Journal of Popular Culture"Johnson's book is eye-opening and could be useful for writers or readers who want to be challenged by perspectives on Western fiction that they might not have previously considered."—Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Roundup Magazine“Michael K. Johnson’s Speculative Wests has a unique feel in its cogent analysis of the western motif in recent speculative fiction written by BIPOC authors between 2016 and 2020. He reinvigorates frontier mythology with politically charged genre critiques regarding time travel, alternate history, and future wars linked to the American West and its history.”—Isiah Lavender III, author of Race in American Science Fiction and Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement“A timely and astute study that enlarges our understanding of U.S. ethnic futurisms through conceptualizing ‘speculative westerns’: new hybridized forms suturing the western and speculative genres. Through incisive close readings, Michael K. Johnson charts alternative spatial and temporal trajectories of the American West and U.S.-Mexico borderlands.”—Cathryn J. Merla-Watson, coeditor of Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture“The deft analysis of race as it intersects with and challenges genre traditions—the western and speculative fiction—makes this an extremely timely and important book.”—Sara L. Spurgeon, author of Exploding the Western: Myths of Empire on the Postmodern Frontier“By looking at speculative wests that ‘disrupt’ authenticity and truth claims latent in the mythos of the western, this book provides another example of the contemporary relevance of the western as part of a hybrid genre that enables meditations on past, present, and future.”—Rebecca M. Lush, professor of literature and writing studies at California State University–San MarcosTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Race, Time Travel, and the Western 2. Trauma, Time Travel, and Legacies of Violence 3. Alternate Cartographies of the West(ern) in Indigenous Futurist Works 4. Speculative Borderlands I: Mestizaje, Temporality, and History 5. Speculative Borderlands II: Time Travel and Cartographies of Trauma 6. Speculative Slave Narrative Westerns Afterword Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisSara Paretsky is known for her influential V.I. Warshawski series, which transformed the masculine hard-boiled detective formula into a vehicle for feminist values. But Paretsky does more than this. Her novels also illustrate the extent to which detective fiction acts as a literature of trauma, allowing Paretsky to address the politics of agency in ways that go beyond the personal, for trauma always has a social and a political dimension. Paretsky’s work also exploits the way detective fiction mirrors the writing of history. Here, Paretsky uses the form to expose the partiality of historical accounts – whether they be personal, institutional, or national – that authorise ‘forgetting’ of a particularly insidious kind. Significantly, all these issues are explored within the framework of the traditional hard-boiled detective novel. As a result, Paretsky’s achievement forces us to acknowledge the deeply subversive potential of detective fiction.Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Repositioning the debate2. Sexual politics and agency3. Community and empowerment4. Global capital and marginality5. Destabilising the status quoAfterwordIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisA WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH In this love letter to reading, curated by Pandora Sykes in aid of the National Literacy Trust, bestselling and beloved writers share their favourite books: the ones they hold most dearly, that they return to time and again and that helped make them the writers they are. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM : NICK HORNBY * RUTH OZEKI * ANN PATCHETT * BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH * MARIAN KEYES * ELIZABETH STROUT * DEBORAH LEVY * TESSA HADLEY * ELIF SHAFAK * GEORGE THE POET * LEILA SLIMANI * ALI SMITH * DEREK OWUSU * DOLLY ALDERTON * PARIS LEES * JOJO MOYES * PAUL MENDEZ * SEBASTIAN FAULKS * DIANA EVANS * MEENA KANDASAMY * LISA TADDEO * NIKESH SHUKLA * TAIYE SELASI * MONICA ALI * NINA STIBBE * CALEB AZUMAH NELSON * ELIZABETH DAY * SARA COLLINS * DAMON GALGUT * NAOISE DOLAN * WILLIAM BOYD * EMMA DABIRI * FATIMA BHUTTO * KIT DE WAALTrade ReviewAll of the essays engage – there isn’t a dud in the bunch – which is perhaps a result of their succinct length . . . but also down to the honesty and thoughtfulness of the contributors . . . Like the best kind of selection box * Irish Times *A treat – one that will propel you on a journey of discovery * Independent *What Writers Read is the perfect stocking filler for the bookish person in your life . . . Gorgeous stuff * Red Magazine *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat do Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling have in common that has made both of their stories so successful? What does Pullman listen to while he writes - and who, or what, is Dust?Pullman's award-winning trilogy His Dark Materials has been appreciated by readers of all ages. It is now set to welcome new fans as it is adapted for television by the BBC, and his new trilogy at last sees publication. Nicholas Tucker, a leading authority on children's literature, writes about the man he knows as a friend. Unpacking and examining Pullman's life and the sources he drew on for his masterpiece, he explores the world of science, theology, imagination and adventure that Pullman has created.Including a personal interview with Pullman himself, Darkness Visible offers a unique exploration of the author's work - and its controversies."Enigmas from His Dark Materials are unraveled. Unmissable for all Pullman readers" Sussex ExpressTrade ReviewEnigmas from His Dark Materials are unraveled... Unmissable for all Pullman readers * Sussex Express *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis'JOYOUS . . . READERS WILL LOVE THIS FASCINATING BOOK' CATHY RENTZENBRINK'A GODSEND WITH THE PRESENT SEASON APPROACHING' IRISH INDEPENDENT'THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A BOOK-OBSESSED FRIEND' STYLIST, 50 UNMISSABLE BOOKS FOR AUTUMN 2017'EXCELLENT . . . SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO LOVES BOOKS' EVENING STANDARDAbsence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead.So begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from our shelves.Whether male or female, domestic or international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well as remembering their careers, lifts the lid on their lives, and why they often stopped writing or disappeared from the public eye.These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced us to psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world.This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide.'A BIBLIOPHILE'S DREAM' FINANCIAL TIMES'WILL HAVE READERS SCURRYING INTO SECONDHAND BOOKSHOPS' GUARDIANTrade ReviewWell researched and wide-ranging . . . The Book of Forgotten Authors is a bibliophile's treat written with verve and passion. It will have readers scurrying into secondhand bookshops in search of yellowing paperbacks. * Guardian *Full of humour and pathos, Christopher Fowler's survey of authors who have fallen into obscurity is a bibliophile's dream. * Financial Times *A real gem, filled with old favourites and new discoveries, and written in a light, snappy, erudite tone, as satisfying as a full English breakfast at your local art-house cafe. -- Joanne HarrisA joyous saunter through the lives and words of yesterday's big names. Readers will love this fascinating book. -- Cathy RentzenbrinkA sure-fire Christmas gift . . . charged with an irresistible passion for the world of the book. * Daily Telegraph *A treasure trove of trivia . . . Excellent . . . This colourful compendium of literary lives should be read by anyone who loves books. * Evening Standard *

Read more less

Book SynopsisIt's a cool July day. A young girl is tired of window-shopping in Oxford Street, when a white rabbit runs past her looking at his watch. "Oh dear! Oh dear! It's 3 o'clock already. I shall be too late!" Without thinking, she chases after the rabbit and they disappear down the escalator into Oxford Street Underground station. As the girl steps onto an Underground train, something remarkable happens and an adventure begins that takes her back in time to meet the characters of Wonderland. In a tale that links the world of Lewis Carroll with today's London Underground, the reader is transported to be a special guest at a mad tea-party, to do battle with the Red Queen and her Guards, chase round the London Underground system and fight the terrifying Jabberwock. The first underground railway in the world opened in London in 1863 just a year after Lewis Carroll first told Alice Liddell the story that became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Did Carroll travel on those underground steam trains? Did he tell stories as he went? Here, Carroll has begun a new tale about the Wonderland characters going on a day-trip to London. With the story unfinished, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse and all are left stranded in the Underground, waiting to be rescued by a modern-day Alice. But will Alice ever come? Peter Lawrence pays tribute to Carroll's imagination and verbal brilliance with this modern adaptation of the author's much-loved characters and themes. Illustrated by award-winning wood engraver Andrew Davidson, Alice's Adventures on the London Underground will appeal to the many readers of Carroll's classic stories.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs the story goes: Jeff Bezos left a lucrative job to start something new in Seattle only after a deeply affecting reading of Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. But if a novel gave usAmazon.com, what has Amazon meant for the novel? In Everything and Less, acclaimed critic Mark McGurl discovers a dynamic scene of cultural experimentation in literature, with a confidence that rivals modernism. Its innovations have little to do with how the novel is written and more to do with how it's distributed online. On the internet, all fiction becomes genre fiction, which is simply another way to predict customer satisfaction. With an eye on the longer history of the novel, this witty, acerbic book tells a story that connects Henry James to E.L. James, Faulkner and Hemingway to contemporary romance, science fiction and fantasy writers. Reclaiming several works of self-published fiction from the gutter of complete critical disregard, it stages a copernican revolution in how we understand the world of letters: it's the stuff of high literature - Colson Whitehead, Don DeLillo, and Amitav Ghosh - that revolve around the star of countless unknown writers trying to forge a career by untraditional means, Adult Baby Diaper Lover erotica being just one fortuitous route. In opening the floodgates of popular literary expression as never before, the Age of Amazon shows a democratic promise, as well as what it means when literary culture becomes corporate culture in the broadbest but also deepest and most troubling sense.Trade ReviewIt is a cliché to say that a book so changes your view of a particular historical period or problem that you never see it the same old way again. But this is the kind of book that warrants such praise. McGurl has brought deep learning, sweeping ambition, and stylistic brio together here to produce a whole new story of postwar American fiction. There is nothing else like it on the shelves of contemporary literary criticism -- Jim English, author of The Economy of Prestige, in praise of McGurl's The Program EraThe Program Era is a brilliant book of great ambition and originality. It will be rightly regarded as a landmark work and will shape the critical understanding of postwar American literature and culture for many years to come -- Sean McCann, author of A Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and Presidential Government, in praise of McGurl's The Program Eraan impressive and imaginative book -- Louis Menand, New Yorker, in praise of McGurl's The Program EraAs Mark McGurl suggests in this deep dive into the ubiquitous reach of "the world's biggest bookstore," in the age of Amazon, "every novel is a genre novel." * Lit Hub (Most Anticipated Books of 2021) *Provocative ... [McGurl] raises significant questions about the state of publishing. * Publishers Weekly *In Everything and Less, accomplished literary critic Mark McGurl makes the case that the online superstore has also changed the way that we read. -- Jeva Lange * The Week *Consumers might find in McGurl's book a warning to stay as far away as possible and seek out better forms of discovery than Amazon's website, like visiting an indie bookstore, asking a friend, or reading a magazine-looking for anything but what rises to the top of the feed. -- Kyle Chayka * The New Republic *The point here - and I think it's the most profound in McGurl's very entertaining book - is that Amazon is refashioning the novel as an object. -- Christopher Webb * Review 31 *Fierce ... Everything and Less enlists literary sources to explain the place of culture in a neoliberal economy. -- Leah Price * New York Times *Provocative ... in lucid and well-argued prose, McGurl goes spelunking through the many genres shaped by Amazon's consumerist logic. -- Adrienne Westenfeld * Esquire (October Book Club Pick) *Intriguing and entertaining ... Everything and Less is a good starting point for a re-consideration of literary production and reading in our times. -- M.A.Orthofer * The Complete Review *Engrossing ... McGurl argues that Amazon's outsize role in serving readers' needs has had a profound impact, not just on well-documented matters of retailing and warehousing, but on what we read, and to an extent, the content of the books themselves. -- Mark Athitakis * On the Seawall *[Mark McGurl is] the most exhaustive scholar to track US fiction's myriad paths from Henry James to Chuck Tingle ... a man who has read a lot, and, in the end, very earnestly. -- Dan Sinykin * Los Angeles Review of Books *Intriguing ... McGurl's object of study is not just the literary Age of Amazon but the place of the novel within it. -- Megan Marz * The Baffler *[McGurl] is attuned to America's signature queasiness about class, pleasure, and mass culture that constellates around reading and education. In Everything and Less, this takes the form of wild anthropological delight as he explores genres, and micro-genres, long dismissed by most mainstream scholarship and criticism. -- Parul Sehgal * New Yorker *Probing ... Everything and Less will speak to those who submerge themselves-whether as writers or readers, entrepreneurs or customers-into the [Kindle Direct Publishing] landscape, while offering much to think about ... for those who cherish traditional publishing and still place some value in the role that gatekeepers have long played in the book industry. -- Robert Weibezahl * BookPage *To survey the vast expanse of Amazon's literary domain, McGurl makes frequent excursions into popular genres rarely considered among academics and critics ... prompting a reassessment of the literary center and the literary fringe. -- Hannah Gold * The Nation *Everything and Less offers a sprawling account of the contemporary literary field, now being remade according to the ethos of the megacorporation. McGurl's theory of the novel is a romp, keyed to his compelling account of the genre system as it is being driven by Amazon and refined by Kindle Direct Publishing. -- Lisa Gitelman * Public Books *McGurl is above all a literary sociologist, and a brilliant one at that: it seems unlikely that any recent or forthcoming book can rival Everything and Less as a survey, at once brashly comprehensive and nimbly speculative, of the contemporary literary world. -- Benjamin Kunkel * Bookforum *

Read more less

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

Read more less

Book SynopsisKate Grenville's The Secret River was one of the most loved novels of 2006. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, the story of William Thornhill and his journey from London to the other side of the world has moved and exhilarated hundreds of thousands of readers. Searching for the Secret River tells the story of how Grenville came to write this wonderful book. It is in itself an amazing story, beginning with Grenville's great-great-great grandfather. Grenville starts to investigate her ancestor, hoping to understand his life. She pursues him from Sydney to London and back, and slowly she begins to realise she must write about him. Searching for the Secret River maps this creative journey into fiction, and illuminates the importance of family in all our lives.Trade ReviewGrenville's skill is to turn what could have been too obviously a representative moral fable into a rich novel of character. * * Sunday Telegraph * *Grenville, as ever, describes an Australia so overwhelmingly beautiful that readers will lust after its sunbaked soul too. * * Daily Telegraph * *We have had to wait five years for The Secret River but the wait has been worth it... Splendidly paced, passionate and disturbing. * * The Times * *

Read more less

Book SynopsisSCOTNOTES booklets are a series of study guides to major Scottish writers and texts frequently used within literature courses, aimed at senior secondary school pupils and students in further education. This title examines ten short stories by the Orkney writer George Mackay Brown, and is an excellent aid for anyone studying these stories.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1954 William Golding was 43 years old and a nobody. He had been demobbed from the navy at the end of World War Two and returned to his pre-war job teaching English at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. Always hard up, he lived in what he called a “lousy council flat” with his wife, Ann, and their two young children. In 1952 he finished the novel that was to become Lord of the Flies, and sent it to five publishers and a literary agency. They all rejected it. The sixth publisher he tried was Faber and Faber, and the professional reader wrote her opinion on the typescript: “Time the Future. Absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the Colonies. A group of children who land in jungle country near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull.”  But the novel was rescued from the reject pile by a new recruit to Faber, and when it was finally published in September 1954 the poet Stevie Smith greeted it as “this beautiful and desperate book”. In the early 1960s cultural commentators noted that Lord of the Flies was replacing Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye as the bible of the American adolescent. Its anti-war tenor helped to ensure its profound impact on the young at a time when the Cold War was hotting up. Since then, his masterpiece has established itself as a modern classic. In this short, compelling guide, John Carey tells us how and why. 

Read more less

Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf, figurehead of the Bloomsbury Group and an innovative writer whose experimental style and lyrical prose ensured her position as one of the most influential of modern novelists, was also firmly anchored in the reality of the houses she lived in and those she visited regularly. Detailed and evocative accounts appear in her letters and diaries, as well as in her fiction, where they appear as backdrops or provide direct inspiration. Hilary Macaskill examines the houses that meant the most to Woolf, including: 22 Hyde Park Gate, London – where Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 Talland House, St Ives, Cornwall – the summer home of Virginia’s family until 1895 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London – the birthplace of the Bloomsbury Group – Virginia lived here from 1904 to 1912 Hogarth House, Richmond, London – where the newly married Woolfs set up home and founded the Hogarth Press Asheham House, East Sussex – the summer home of the Woolfs, 1912-1919 52 Tavistock Square, London – a return to Bloomsbury, the heart of London Monk’s House, Rodmell, East Sussex – where Virginia lived from 1919 until her death in 1941 Trade Review"A delight to the eye and a pleasure to read. Anyone who picks it up will be enchanted by it. * Virginia Woolf Bulletin *"The Woolfs' domestic lives have been documented many times, but Macaskill has written a lively and lovingly researched book, full of domestic detail, which is sure to delight Bloomsbury fans." * Sussex Life *“Intriguing insight into her domestic life . . . rich with quotes.” * House & Garden *"A confident, well-written book with a whiff of that seductive 'spirit of place'." * Times Literary Supplement *"I can’t really recommend Virginia Woolf at Home highly enough for its excellent combination of the visual and the written...if you want a look into the life of Virginia Woolf, both the woman and the writer, this is a great place to start. It’s informative, evocative, readable and very lovely to look at." * Kaggy's Bookish Ramblings blog *"Ms Macaskill handles her material with elegance and a light touch." * Country Life *"Hilary Macaskill is... an indefatigable sleuth." * World of Interiors *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTowards the end of 1974, a stranger arrived in the small town of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He could often be found sitting at the bar in the Napier Tavern, drinking lager and smoking Gauloises while flicking through the pages of the Kent Evening Post. "Charles" was the name he offered to his new acquaintances. But this unexpected immigrant was actually Uwe Johnson, originally from the Baltic province of Mecklenburg in the GDR, and already famous as the leading author of a divided Germany. What caused him to abandon West Berlin and spend the last nine years of his life in Sheerness, where he eventually completed his great New York novel Anniversaries in a house overlooking the outer reaches of the Thames Estuary? And what did he mean by detecting a “moral utopia” in a town that others, including his concerned friends, saw only as a busted slum on an island abandoned to “deindustrialisation” and a stranded Liberty ship full of unexploded bombs? Patrick Wright, who himself abandoned north Kent for Canada a few months before Johnson arrived, returns to the “island that is all the world” to uncover the story of the East German author’s English decade, and to understand why his closely observed Kentish writings continue to speak with such clairvoyance in the age of Brexit. Guided in his encounters and researches by clues left by Johnson in his own “island stories”, the book is set in the 1970s, when North Sea oil and joining the European Economic Community seemed the last hope for bankrupt Britain. It opens out to provide an alternative version of modern British history: a history for the present, told through the rich and haunted landscapes of an often spurned downriver mudbank, with a brilliant German answer to Robinson Crusoe as its primary witness.Trade Review"A monumental sifting and arranging of local particulars, stitched against the savage farce of a great European novelist’s elective exile... Patrick Wright has picked over the landfill of a very specific Estuary culture to devastating effect.""A double 'biography' of the great but always tempestuous German writer Uwe Johnson and his ultimate home, the gritty and disreputable Isle of Sheppey. 'Biography' is in quotes because Wright is a saboteur of genres and his books encompass multiple worlds. I stand in awe of what he has accomplished here.""A masterful modernist history, and Patrick Wright’s most important book, bringing Europe to England by showing it has always been here, at a moment when too many want to believe something else.""An extraordinary, haunting book... a phenomenal achievement.""An astonishing chronicle of the great German author Uwe Johnson, who moved to Sheerness, Kent, in the 70s.”“To repeat: this tidal book, reaching into everything and then withdrawing to show what is left behind, is a triumph."“A huge achievement: a comprehensive portrait of a place and a person, and the best book about Brexit that’s yet been written.""A model portrait of person and place, a kind of cultural and literary geography that never fails to fascinate.""A glorious rabbit hole of a book ... a longue durée portrait, from the 17th century to Thatcher, of a single location on the edges of British national life."“Wright plays both the anatomist and the elegist for the blighted modernity of seemingly forsaken spots such as Sheppey … a fragmentary panorama of traumatic, half-remembered history, personal and national.”“Thorough, discerning, compassionate.”"The most involving and originally-conceived social history of modern England to have appeared in decades." "A hymn to estuarial peculiarity and a lament for an awkward man determined never to find his place." "I was entirely captivated by this microscopic, discursive study of Uwe Johnson... a great book about the relationship between Britain and the rest of Europe, and not a page too long."

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisFyodor Dostoevsky's psychological book Crime and Punishment examines the ethical and psychological consequences of committing a crime. The plot centres on Rodion Raskolnikov, an underprivileged young student from St. Petersburg who decides to murder a pawnbroker in order to get her money. Raskolnikov battles guilt and paranoia after the crime, and as he seeks to avoid the repercussions of his conduct, his mental and physical health suffers. Several individuals with connections to Raskolnikov, including as his family, acquaintances, and the police officer looking into the murder, are also followed throughout the story. Dostoevsky explores topics like poverty, morality, redemption, and the essence of justice via his short stories. Raskolnikov finally confesses to the crime and accepts his penalty, which results in his ultimate redemption as he becomes more and more isolated and tortured by his guilt. The book explores the human mind and the effects of moral failings in a nuanced and thoughtful manner. Ultimately, Crime and Punishment is a fascinating and challenging book that explores human nature and the effects of our choices, captivating and challenging readers in the process. It is regarded as a masterwork of psychological realism and one of the finest literary works in the Western canon.

Read more less

Book SynopsisChristopher Schaberg is Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University, New Orleans, USA. He is the author of 7 books, including The Textual Life of Airports (2013), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), and Pedagogy of the Depressed (2022). He is series co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series.

Read more less