First published in France in 1976, Anne Ubersfeld's three-volume work, Lire le theatre, has made a resounding impact on the semiological study of drama. Reading Theatre is a long-awaited translation of the first volume.

Clear and systematic in its approach, the book covers all the basic elements of theatrical text and performance. Ubersfeld begins by refuting the view of performance as the simple 'translation' of a dramatic text, and outlines a much more complex dynamic. In subsequent chapters she similarly begins with a brief critique of simplistic models and then teases out the...

The detective story centres on unravelling two questions: whodunit? and who is guilty? In Murder and Mayhem, Heta Pyrhonen examines how these questions organize and pattern the genre's formal and thematic structures. Beginning with a semiotic reading of the detective as both code-breaker and sign-reader, Pyrhonen's theoretical analysis then situates the reader and the detective in parallel worlds - both use the detective genre's typical motifs in solving the crime, but do not employ the same narrative interpretations to do so. This difference is examined with the help of the familiar game...