Literary Criticism

24032 books

Best Books for Kids Who (Think They) Hate to Read: 125 Books That Will Turn Any Child into a Lifelong Reader - Paperback

$20.00

by Laura Backes (Author)Get Your Child Hooked on Books Reading can become a favorite part of any child's life--even children who think they hate to read. And, with the help of this unique book, it's easy to put your reluctant reader on the path to becoming an enthusiastic reader. Inside are 125 books that are certain to ignite your child's interest in reading. You'll find a variety of titles with real kid appeal--the best of the best for children of all reading levels. These books will captiv...

Building Fires in the Snow: A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction and Poetry - Paperback

$32.95

by Martha Amore (Editor), Lucian Childs (Editor)Diversity has always been central to Alaska identity, as the state's population consists of people with many different backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences. This book opens a window into these diverse lives, gathering stories and poems about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer life into a brilliant, path-breaking anthology. In these pages we see the panoply of LGBTQ life in Alaska today, from the quotidian urban adventures o...

The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edith Wharton - Paperback

$98.91

by Emily J. Orlando (Editor)Bringing together leading voices from across the globe, The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edith Wharton represents state-of-the-art scholarship on the American writer Edith Wharton, once primarily known as a New York novelist. Focusing on Wharton's extensive body of work and renaissance across 21st-century popular culture, chapters consider: - Wharton in the context of queer studies, race studies, whiteness studies, age studies, disability studies, anthropological studi...

The Medium of Leonora Carrington: A Feminist Haunting in the Contemporary Arts - Paperback

$37.75

by Catriona McAra (Author)Before her death, the artist and writer Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) had already garnered a cult following, with numerous creative people making the pilgrimage to meet her at her home in Mexico City. Since then, her fame has only increased. Thinking across contemporary art media, this book demonstrates how Carrington has posthumously become a medium in her own right, critically haunting the creative intellectuals who met or knew her. It explores the work of a remar...

Botanical Poetics: Early Modern Plant Books and the Husbandry of Print - Hardcover

$114.75

by Jessica Rosenberg (Author)During the middle years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the number of books published with titles that described themselves as flowers, gardens, or forests more than tripled. During those same years, English printers turned out scores of instructional manuals on gardening and husbandry, retailing useful knowledge to a growing class of literate landowners and pleasure gardeners. Both trends, Jessica Rosenberg shows, reflected a distinctive style of early modern plant-t...

The Complete Short Prose of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1989 - Paperback

$18.00

by Samuel Beckett (Author), S. E. Gontarski (Editor)Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett was one of the most profoundly original writers of the 20th century. He gave expression to the anguish and isolation of the individual consciousness with a purity and minimalism that have altered the shape of world literature. A tremendously influential poet and dramatist, Beckett spoke of his prose fiction as the important writing, the medium in which he distilled his ideas most powerfully. Here, for the fi...

$14.00

by William Shakespeare (Author), William Montgomery (Editor), Janis Lull (Introduction by)The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare's time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by gener...

A Loeb Classical Library Reader - Paperback

$9.95

by Loeb Classical Library (Author)This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from 33 of antiquity's major authors includes poetry, dialogue, philosophical writing, history, descriptive reporting, satire, and fiction--giving a glimpse at the wide range of arts and sciences, thought and styles, of Greco-Roman culture. The selections span twelve centuries, from Homer to Saint Jerome. The texts and translations are reproduced as they appear in Loeb volumes. The Loeb Classical Library(R) is the only...

Poetry for historians: Or, W. H. Auden and history - Paperback

$78.57

by Carolyn Steedman (Author)What is the point of poetry for historians? The answer lies in this new 'history of history', which looks at the question through the prism of W. H. Auden's Cold War history poems and of poetry and history education from the eighteenth century to the present day.Front JacketThis book is about the long, convoluted relationship between poets and historians, poetry and history. Sometimes antagonistic, sometimes harmonious, this relationship has always been a kind of l...

$50.00

by Raymond Clemens (Editor), Deborah E. Harkness (Introduction by)The first authorized copy of this mysterious, much-speculated-upon, one-of-a-kind, centuries-old puzzle "For the first time, a complete reproduction of] The Voynich Manuscript, has been published, featuring essays exploring what is known about the book and extra-wide margins so readers can record their responses to its beguiling, beautiful strangeness."--Nina Maclaughlin, Boston Globe "For people who like a good historical my...

The Best Presidential Writing: From 1789 to the Present - Paperback

$20.00

by Craig Fehrman (Editor)Author BiographyCraig Fehrman, a journalist and historian, spent more than a decade immersed in the presidents' writings to produce his first book, Author in Chief, which was described by Thomas Mallon in The Wall Street Journal as "one of the best books on the American presidency to appear in recent years." Fehrman lives in Indiana with his wife and children. Number of Pages: 512 Dimensions: 1.3 x 9.4 x 6.1 IN Publication Date: October 04, 2022

$14.99

by Annie Dillard (Author)"[This] is a book of great richness, beauty and power and thus very difficult to do justice to in a brief review. . . . The violence is sometimes unbearable, the language rarely less than superb. Dillard's description of the moth's death makes Virginia Woolf's go dim and Edwardian. . . . Nature seen so clear and hard that the eyes tear. . . . A rare and precious book." -- Frederick Buechner, New York Times Book ReviewFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a book a...

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror - Paperback

$18.00

by Thomas Ligotti (Author)In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality. "There is a signature motif discernible in both works of philosophical pessimism and supernatural horror. It may be stated thus: Behind the scenes of life lurks something pernicious that makes a nightmare of our world....

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Paperback

$18.00

by Maya Angelou (Author), Oprah Winfrey (Foreword by)Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut me...

The Filostrato of Boccaccio: A Translation with Parallel Text - Hardcover

$129.98

by Nathaniel Edward Griffin (Editor), Nathaniel Edward Griffin (Translator), Arthur Beckwith Myrick (Editor)First full English-language translation of the source of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, with a reprint of the original Moutier version and an explanatory introduction. Number of Pages: 512 Dimensions: 1.13 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN Publication Date: January 29, 1929

Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays - Paperback

$17.95

by Nicole Graev Lipson (Author)"Sensitive, searingly intelligent, and beautifully written." --Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma "This is--for real--a masterwork, one I will return to over and over." --Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year In this intimate and riveting memoir, Best American Essayist Nicole Graev Lipson breaks through the ready-made stories of womanhood, rescuing truth from the fiction that infiltrates our lives. What does it take to escape the plotlines ...

$13.99

by Slavoj Zizek (Author)To define 'progress' is to lay claim to the future. Seminal thinker Slavoj Zizek turns essayist to interrogate the competing visions which form the horizons of human possibility and ask: Can things, which have never seemed worse, get better? What would a better world be? And how, when we are constantly besieged by doomers, degrowthers and disorienting relativisms can we make any headway at all in the face of unprecedented ecological, social and political crises?In thir...

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction - Paperback

$9.99

by Ursula K. Le Guin (Author), Donna J. Haraway (Introduction by), Lee Bul (Illustrator)In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin retells the story of human origin by redefining technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination. Hacking the linear, progressive mode of the Techno-Heroic, the Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution proposes: 'before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.' Prior to the pr...

Suspect Subjects: Queer Legal Futures in the Us After Bostock - Paperback

$108.00

by Laura Borchert (Author)Despite formal equality gains such as LGBTQ workplace protections (Bostock v. Clayton County 2020), heteronormative cultural orders still permeate queer rights discourse. Laura Borchert engages with the cultural-legal construction of sexual minorities in the US and deconstructs naturalized assumptions about >the QueerAuthor BiographyLaura Borchert, born in 1989, is a research associate (postdoc) in the DFG-funded project ?Human Rights Discourses in Migrant Societi...

How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer - Paperback

$20.99

by Sarah Bakewell (Author)Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, from the author of Humanly PossibleHow to get along with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love--such questions arise in most people's lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: How do you live? This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, considered by many to be the first truly modern individual. He wrote free-roamin...

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 2, 1923-1925 - Hardcover

$39.95

by Ernest Hemingway (Author), Sandra Spanier (Editor), Albert J. Defazio III (Editor)The Letters of Ernest Hemingway documents the life and creative development of a gifted artist and outsized personality whose work would both reflect and transform his times. Volume 2 (1923-1925) illuminates Hemingway's literary apprenticeship in the legendary milieu of expatriate Paris in the 1920s. We witness the development of his friendships with the likes of Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Do...

Romeo and Juliet (No Fear Shakespeare): Volume 2 - Paperback

$7.99

by Sparknotes (Author)Read Shakespeare's plays in all their brilliance--and understand what every word means! Don't be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard's plays accessible and enjoyable. Each No Fear guide contains: The complete text of the original play A line-by-line translation that puts the words into everyday language A complete list of characters, with descriptions Plenty of helpful commentary Number of Pages: 304 Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.4 x 5.2 IN Publicat...

The World of All Souls: The Complete Guide to a Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, and the Book of Life - Hardcover

$42.00

by Deborah Harkness (Author), Colleen Madden (Illustrator), Claire Baldwin (Contribution by)A fully illustrated guide to Deborah Harkness's #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls trilogy--"an irresistible . . . wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy" (People). Look for the hit TV series "A Discovery of Witches," streaming on AMC Plus, Sundance Now and Shudder. A Discovery of Witches introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Shad...

Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes - Hardcover

$32.00

by Edith Hamilton (Author), Jim Tierney (Artist)This deluxe edition of the world's most beloved, bestselling classic on Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology is stunningly illustrated with specially commissioned full-color plates and a beautiful gold-bordered pages. Since its original publication in 1942, Edith Hamilton's Mythology has sold millions of copies throughout the world and established itself as a perennial bestseller. For nearly 80 years, readers have chosen Mythology: Timeless Tales...

$15.00

by August Wilson (Author)The revival of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and John David Washington is now on Broadway! Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, this modern American classic is about family, and the legacy of slavery in America. August Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Co...

100 Books That Changed the World - Hardcover

$27.95

by Colin Salter (Author), Scott Christianson (Author)A thought-provoking chronological timeline of the world's most influential books. Many books have become classics, must-reads, or overnight publishing sensations, but how many can genuinely claim to have changed the way we see and think? In 100 Books that Changed the World, authors Scott Christianson and Colin Salter bring together an exceptional collection of truly ground-breaking books--from scriptures that founded religions, to scientifi...

The Author and His Doubles: Essays on Classical Arabic Culture - Paperback

$32.33

by Abdelfattah Kilito (Author), Michael Cooperson (Translator)Michael Cooperson's translation makes Abdelfattah Kilito's masterpiece available to English-speaking audiences for the first time. Called the most inventive and provocative critic of Arabic literature writing in the Middle East today, Kilito opens our perception with the same breadth of vision, seeking to define the traditional and historical forces that bind one writer to another and that inextricably link an author to a text. Thi...

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 17 - Paperback

$15.99

by Rifujin Na Magonote (Author), Shirotaka (Illustrator)THE PRINCESS AND HER KNIGHT Rudeus plunges into the political fray, enacting Orsted's plan to put Ariel on the throne of the Asura Kingdom. Though fortune seems to favor them at first, the crafty Man God has one last card up his sleeve⁠--a dangerous foe they must face before the new monarch can assume her crown. Worse yet, there may be a traitor in their midst!Author BiographyRifujin na Magonote is a Japanese writer best known as the aut...

$19.39

by Nancy R. Reagin (Editor), Janice Liedl (Editor)What do Gandalf and Merlin have in common, besides robes and magical staffs? Where do hobbits get their recipes, riddles, and love of rambling? What other Rings of Power were circulating in medieval Europe? How did Thorin violate the rules of medieval kingship?You'll find the answers and more in this book, which explores the magic and creativity behind J.R.R. Tolkien's bestselling story from a historical perspective. Tolkien was a professor of...

Salvage: Readings from the Wreck - Hardcover

$27.00

by Dionne Brand (Author)One of Literary Hub's most anticipated books of 2024Dionne Brand explores English and American literature, and the colonial aesthetic that shaped her sense of self and the world, of what was possible and what was not. In Salvage: Readings from the Wreck, Dionne Brand's first major book of nonfiction since her classic A Map to the Door of No Return, the acclaimed poet and novelist offers a bracing look at the intersections of reading and life, and what remains in the wr...

Heroes with a Hundred Names: Mythology and Folklore in the Early Fiction of Robert Penn Warren - Paperback

$71.91

by Leverett Butts (Author) Author Robert Penn Warren's fiction captures centuries worth of mythology and folklore from all across the globe--from Hebrew, Norse, Roman and Caribbean mythology, to Arthurian legends. This work explores the inspirations and hidden heroes in his works, beginning with his first novel, Night Rider, and extending through his fifth, Band of Angels. The fascinating ways, both blatant and obscure, that Warren incorporates religious practices and ancient legends into his...

Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times - Paperback

$16.00

by Andrew D. Kaufman (Author)"This lively appreciation of one of the most intimidating and massive novels ever written should persuade many hesitant readers to try scaling the heights of War and Peace sooner rather than later" (Publishers Weekly).Considered by many critics the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is also one of the most feared. And at 1,500 pages, it's no wonder why. Still, in July 2009 Newsweek put War and Peace at the top of its list of 100 great novels and a 2007 edi...