Literary Criticism

Lysistrata is the most notorious of Aristophanes' comedies. First staged in 411 BCE, its action famously revolves around a sex strike launched by the women of Greece in an attempt...

WHAT MAKES A HERO? WHO BETTER TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION THAN LEE CHILD... 'It's Lee Child. Why would you not read it?' Karin Slaughter 'I don't know another author so...

Reading Poetry with College and University Students aims to help faculty foster students' intellectual and aesthetic engagement with poems while enabling them to sharpen critical and creative thinking skills. Reading...

The Presidents of American Fiction brings together American literature, history, and political science to explore the most influential fictionalized accounts of the presidency from the early 19th century to the...

The adventures of James Bond have thrilled readers since Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale was published in 1953, and when the movie of Dr No was released in 1962, Bond...

The adventures of James Bond have thrilled readers since Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale was published in 1953, and when the movie of Dr No was released in 1962, Bond...

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was...

Social Ethics and Governance in Contemporary African Writing is the first book to bring rigorous literary, philosophical, and artistic discourse together to interrogate the ethics of governance and development in...

Our relationship with trees is a lengthy, complex one. Since we first walked the earth we have, at various times, worshiped them, felled them and even talked to them. For...

Though best known in the English speaking world for his short fictions and poems, Borges is revered in Latin America equally as an immensely prolific and beguiling writer of non-fiction...

A glorious treasury of literary curiosities for every night of the year.Bedside Companion for Book Lovers contains an eclectic mix of fact and fiction, letters, diaries, essays and dedications, all...

In James Joyce and the Matter of Paris, Catherine Flynn recovers the paradigmatic city of European urban modernity as the foundational context of Joyce's imaginative consciousness. Beginning with Joyce's underexamined...

W. B. Yeats believed that a poet's life should be an experiment in living. His poems fashion into memorable words the sometimes puzzling emotions that hover over important life events....

In Letters of Note: Love, Shaun Usher gathers together some of the most powerful messages about love ever composed, whether inspired by love's first blush or the recriminations at its...

People everywhere have found themselves faced with a global pandemic, during which we have learned to cope with sickness and all that accompanies it: isolation, immunity, loss of control, and...

Richard Holloway is one of our most beloved public thinkers. Throughout his life he has turned to poets and writers to help answer the big questions, and for solace and...

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...

The first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age....

John le Carre was a defining writer of his time. From The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which changed our understanding of the secret agent from guns and...

A personal and powerful essay on loss from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. 'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You...

A NEW, REVISED EDITION OF THE ULTIMATE NORA EPHRON COLLECTION, PACKED WITH WIT, WISDOM AND COMFORT, WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS'The perfect introduction to the iconic writer' STYLISTINCLUDING:* Nora's...

What exactly are the Weird and the Eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to...

*THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*'This book might just change your life' Sunday Times'Wise, wonderful, moving and brilliant... will leave your heart in a much better place' StylistAfter years of...

From first steps to final submission, this accessible guide takes students through each stage of the assignment-writing process and equips them with the skills they need to construct and develop...

Thomas Mann arrived in Princeton in 1938, in exile from Nazi Germany, and feted in his new country as "the greatest living man of letters." This beautiful new book from...

Part literary history, part personal memoir, Alice Brittan's beautifully written The Art of Astonishment explores the rich intellectual, religious, and philosophical history of the gift and tells the interconnected story...

'The bookiest book about books you'll ever read - I loved it' Lucy Mangan'Truly delightful...I couldn't have had more fun' Benjamin Dreyer 'Very funny, erudite and profound. A delight!' Nina...

Foreword by bestselling and award-winning author Smriti Halls.The indispensable guide to writing for children of all ages from pre-school to young adults, this Yearbook provides inspirational articles from dozens of...

The world of books in one little book. It doesn't matter how well read you are, A Little Book About Books is packed full of quotes, one-liners and famous lines...

"This book was crying out to be written." The Irish Times"Scandalously readable." Literary ReviewJames Joyce's relationship with his homeland was a complicated and often vexed one. The publication of his...

A momentous memoir of childhood and adolescence from one of our finest and most beloved writers, as we've never seen her before. In The Lost Landscape, Joyce Carol Oates vividly...

'I find it impossible to imagine anyone better read than White ... Wisdom and a certain kind of tenderness are to be found on every page' ObserverEdmund White made his...

'Castillo's How To Read Now took my breath away. Energetically brilliant, warmly humane, incisively funny' Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize -winning author of Less'I gasped, shouted, and holler-laughed while reading...

A new collection of Shaw's major political writings presents an opportunity to reflect on his influential role as a public intellectual. At the forefront of economic and political debate from...

Teeming with life and compulsively readable, the pieces gathered together in The Tribe aggregate into an extraordinary mosaic of Cuba today. Carlos Manuel Alvarez, one of the most exciting young...

Each topic is a gem of brilliant writing from a master storyteller. By turns delightful, thought provoking, funny and packed with stories and observations about life's vagaries.

This study in reception develops close readings of English literature as means of interrogating Virgil's texts. Through four case studies, bookended by wide-ranging introductory and concluding chapters, this book shows...

A collection of exquisitely crafted essays by Ben Okri, one of Britain's foremost poets, and a Booker Prize-winning novelist, that explore such diverse themes as childhood and creativity, beauty, censorship,...

We all live online now, but what does that mean in IRL? How do strange subcultures on reddit affect our local shopping centres, what do night gyms owe to Twitter,...

Writers' relationships with their surroundings are seldom straightforward. While some, like Jane Austen and Thomas Mann, wrote novels set where they were staying (Lyme Regis and Venice respectively), Victor Hugo...

'I cannot think of a time in living memory when this book would have been more urgent or more necessary' Sarah Perry, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Essex Serpent'There...

In litter-strewn Epping Forest on the edge of London, might a writer find that magical moment of transcendence? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, as well as...

Enjoy this portable guide to the London of Sherlock Holmes, then and now. Packed with fascinating information about London past and present, and in a handy pocket-sized format, this new...