Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Books & Reading

Now in "THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT," once again literary detective Robert Borski brings his critical eye and acumen to the wide array of Wolfe's work, from short stories to novellas to mega-book series.

Along the way he'll reveal to you the hidden alchemical structure of PEACE, why he thinks Latro and several others may be werewolves, what has happened to the missing twenty-four hours in 'Seven American Nights," what Biblical story is retold in the pulpish 'Tracking Song," who...

Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them--from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to "judge a book by its cover," and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the...

Human consciousness, long the province of literature, has lately come in for a remapping--even rediscovery--by the natural sciences, driven by developments in Artificial Intelligence, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. As the richest record we have of human consciousness, literature, David Lodge suggests, may offer a kind of understanding that is complementary, not opposed, to scientific knowledge. Writing with characteristic wit and brio, and employing the insight and acumen of a skilled novelist and critic, Lodge here explores the representation of human consciousness in fiction...

John Wynne, a Grammy-nominated audio producer, has selected over 2,000 titles for you to choose from. Arranged by category and ranked with a one- to four-star rating, here are capsule reviews for hundreds of audios, including classic and contemporary fiction of every genre, children's titles, business, self-help, inspiration, radio drama, poetry, science fiction, and much more....

Full of fresh and exciting insights, Making Your Own Days illuminates the somewhat mysterious subject of poetry for those who read it and for those who write it--as well as for those who would like to read and write it better. By treating poetry not as a special use of language but as a distinct language--unlike the one used in prose and conversation--Koch clarifies the nature of poetic inspiration, how poems are...

Here are two hundred reader-tested answers to the question "What have you read that's good?" The Readers' Choice is the first book to feature titles based on the recommendations of numerous book clubs. Victoria McMains has collected two hundred favorites of more than seventy reading groups nationwide, ideal for book group members looking for a "good read," busy people seeking enjoyable books outside the bestseller lists, or anyone who wants to read more but isn't sure where to start.

Combining her skills as a book reveiwer and a veteran book group member, McMains...

The description for this book, Samuel Johnson and the Impact of Print: (Originally published as Printing Technology, Letters, and Samuel Johnson), will be forthcoming.

Coleridge is such a celebrity that many who have never read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" have a fair idea who he was, and yet the common impression of him is not flattering. He is typically seen as a youthful genius transformed by drugs and philosophy into a tedious sage. It is time for a change of image. A Book I Value offers a one-volume sampling of Coleridge's encyclopedic marginalia, revealing a figure more complex but also more humanly attractive--clever, curious, playful, intense--than the one we are used to.

This book makes a convenient introduction to Coleridge's...

Nearly as global in its ambition and sweep as its subject, Franco Moretti's The Novel is a watershed event in the understanding of the first truly planetary literary form. A translated selection from the epic five-volume Italian Il Romanzo (2001-2003), The Novel's two volumes are a unified multiauthored reference work, containing more than one hundred specially commissioned essays by leading contemporary critics from around the world. Providing the first international comparative reassessment of the novel, these essential volumes reveal the form in unprecedented depth...

In a famous passage in The Red and the Black, the French writer Stendhal described the novel as a mirror being carried along a roadway. In the twentieth century this was derided as a naive notion of realism. Instead, modern writers experimented with creative forms of invention and dislocation. Deconstructive theorists went even further, questioning whether literature had any real reference to a world outside its own language, while traditional historians challenged whether novels gave a trustworthy representation of history and society.

In this book, Morris Dickstein...

Maurizio Bettini argues that oral culture, because it does not have an inexhaustible memory at its disposal, tends to preserve its cultural inheritance. But written culture forgets nothing: but when everything can be recalled or somehow retrieved, the problem becomes what to remember and what to consign to oblivion.

This provocative book, written with a light touch, rooted in the Classics but ranging over the whole of Western literary culture, addresses many of the major issues that face us at the turn of the millennium. What is our shared cultural currency? What use - good or bad -...