Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Books & Reading

Medieval Italy presented a rich array of discrete textual cultures, many of them specific to particular regions, professions, or groups of writers and readers. The essays in this collection consider how distinct habits of writing took root among specific communities in Italy between the early Middle Ages and the eve of the Renaissance.

In examining how ideological concerns helped give shape to strategies of writing and how forms of communication influenced cultural developments, these case studies assess a wide range of texts, including legal treatises, saintly biographies,...

The Call to Read is the first full-length study to situate thesurviving oeuvre of Reginald Pecock in the context of currentscholarship on English vernacular theology of the late medieval period. Kirsty Campbell examines the important and innovative contribution Pecock made to late medieval debates about the roles of the Bible, the Church, the faculty of reason, and practices of devotion in fostering a vital, productive, and stable Christian community.

Campbell argues that Pecock's fascinating attempt to educate the laity is more than an effort to supply religious reading material: it is...

While narrative has been one of the liveliest and most productive areas of research in literary theory, discussions of the nature of emotional responses to art and of the cognitive value of art tend to concentrate almost exclusively on the problem of fiction: How can we emote over or learn from fictions? Narrative, Emotion, and Insight explores what would happen if aestheticians framed the matter differently, having narratives--rather than fictional characters and events--as the object of emotional and cognitive attention. The book thus opens up new possibilities for approaching...

Teachers can always benefit from new techniques that allow them to teach writing in a more engaging and enjoyable manner, and a resource that identifies a plethora of excellent children's books that help students become successful writers would also be helpful. "Books That Teach Kids to Write" introduces busy educators to the finest in children's literature in all genres, appropriate for readers in grades K through 12; and provides effective ideas for using those books to stimulate and improve student writing.

This book discusses language use and other critical components of good...

"The Family in Literature for Young Readers: A Resource Guide for Use with Grades 4 to 9" provides a thorough exploration of the diversity of modern family structure and composition as depicted in contemporary literature for young readers. Written specifically with librarians and teachers in mind, this book serves as a reference guide for selecting and recommending these titles to students in grades 4 to 9.

After an overview of the subject of family in books for young audiences and a brief history of the family and marriage, the book provides detailed analysis of more than 40 specific...

The fascinating stories behind what have been rightly called the "hottest books on the planet": The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Through insightful commentary and revealing interviews, you will enter the unique world of Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist---and of Stieg Larsson himself---discovering the fascinating real-life experiences and incidents involving Swedish politics, violence against women, and neo-Nazis that are at the heart of Larsson's work.

John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish author...

In Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing eminent Rossetti scholar LorraineJanzen Kooistra demonstrates the cultural centrality of a neglected artifact: the Victorian illustrated gift book. Turning a critical lens on "drawing-room books" as both material objects and historical events, Kooistra reveals how the gift book's visual/verbal form mediated "high" and popular art as well as book and periodical publication.

A composite text produced by many makers, the poetic gift book was designed for domestic space and a female audience; its mode of publication...

"In some moods, or for some people, the desire to improve can seem so natural as to be banal. The impulse drives forward so much in our culture that it can color our thoughts and shape our actions without being much noticed. But in other moods, or for other people, this strenuous desire becomes all too noticeable, and its demands crushing. It can then drive a sleepless attention to ourselves, a desolate evaluation of what we have been and what we are." from The Burdens of Perfection

Literary criticism has, in recent decades, rather fled from discussions of moral psychology,...

Depicted in popular films, television series, novels, poems, and countless media reports, Sylvia Plath's women readers have become nearly as legendary as Plath herself, in large part because the depictions are seldom kind. If one is to believe the narrative told by literary and popular culture, Plath's primary audience is a body of young, misguided women who uncritically -- even pathologically -- consume Plath's writing with no awareness of how they harm the author's reputation in the process.

Janet Badia investigates the evolution of this narrative, tracing its origins, exposing the...

Manga is the backbone of Japanese popular culture, influencing everything from television, movies, and video games to novels, art, and theater. Shojo manga (girls' comics) has been seminal to the genre as a whole and especially formative for Japanese girls' culture throughout the postwar era. In Straight from the Heart, Jennifer Prough examines the shojo manga industry as a site of cultural storytelling, illuminating the ways that issues of mass media, gender, production, and consumption are involved in the process of creating shojo manga.

With their glittery pastel covers and focus...

Based on the highly acclaimed reviews of American Reference Books Annual, "RRB" includes only those resources that have been recommended for purchase by small and medium-sized academic, public, or school libraries. Written by 150 subject specialists, the reviews will help librarians to choose the right new reference materials for their facility in any given field. Every reviewer comment--whether positive and negative--has been retained, since even recommended works may be weak in one respect or another. If your budget precludes purchasing "ARBA," this tool will provide you with the...