British author Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials confronts some of the most urgent dilemmas of our time. These fourteen diverse essays offer literary and historical analysis as well as approaches f

01 Fantasy is one of the most visible genres in popular culture: we see the creation of magical and imagined worlds and characters in every type of media, with very strong fan bases in tow. This is another in the succe

01 Historical fiction is a hugely popular genre, providing fictional accounts or dramatisations of historical figures or events. This latest guide in the highly successful Bloomsbury Must-Read series presents 100 of th

02 The ultimate guide to the genre of life changing books. 03 Novels which transform our ideas about human possibilities, biographies which celebrate the achievements of extraordinary individuals, polemical works of no

Dozens of Australia's best thinkers, writers and commentators reassess the books that provide the foundation for liberty and democracy in Australia and around the world. From Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Ora

"501 Must Read Books" is like the wisest, cleverest, best-read and most trusted friend you have ever had. The recommendations for inclusion in this comprehensive book were made by a bibliophile and writer with a peerl

"The Arabian Nights" has become a synonym for the fabulous and the exotic. Every child is familiar with the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. Yet very few people, even specialists in oriential liter

01 BEHIND THE BESTSELLERS is a collection of 50 fascinating stories about the lives, loves and literature that inspired the world's greatest books. Full of dinner party trivia, literary history and lore of all kinds, this is a reveali

Reading groups allow you to share your passion for literature, gain new insight and discover new friends. But how do you create your own group and how do you keep discussions lively and focussed? This book offers reader

Folk and fairy tales pervade the everyday world to such a degree that we are sometimes unaware of their enormous influence on our behaviour. In the seven essays in this collection, Zipes discusses historically and critically the evolution of

Some of the most innovative and spell-binding literature has been written for young people, but only recently has academic study embraced its range and complexity. This Companion offers a state-of-the-subject survey of English-

A reference guide to world literature in English includes information on writers, works, genres, and movements.

This is an insightful and revealing collection of interviews with the critically acclaimed of author of "Atonement" and "On Chesil Beach". "Conversations with Ian McEwan" collects sixteen interviews, conducted over three decades, with the Br

This collection of John Updike's non-fiction writings includes a delightful preface, 'Everything Considered', in which he tells of his lifelong love affair with words; essays on travel, and on faith; introductions to some of the cl

"Whom the gods wish to destroy," writes Cyril Connolly, "they first call promising." First published in 1938 and long out of print, "Enemies of Promise," an "inquiry into the problem of how to write a book that lasts ten years," tests the bo

This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. Writing with humour and erudition, Fadiman moves easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically li

'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.' This fragment of Archilochus, which gives this book its title, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Tolstoy. There have b

Never has contemporary fiction been more widely discussed and passionately analysed; recent years have seen a huge growth in the number of reading groups and in the interest of a non-academic readership in the discussio

02 A mischievous and provocative book about reading and talking about books that we have - or haven't - read. 03 In this mischievous and provocative book, a bestseller in France, Pierre Bayard contends that in this age

Drawing on examples from works by Graham Greene, Umberto Eco, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and others, this book examines the many kinds of 'non-reading' (forgotten books, unknown books, books discussed by others, books we've ski

Ben Naparstek in conversation with Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Carlos Fuentes, Peter Handke, Seamus Heaney, Peter Hoeg, Michel Houellebecq, David Guterson, Elfriede Jelinek, Ismail Kadare, Peter Matthiessen, Jay Mcinerney, Rick Moo

Jane's Fame is a story of personal struggle, family intrigue, accident, advocacy and sometimes surprising neglect?as well as a history of changing public tastes and critical practices. In a wide-ranging study aimed at the general

"The Keys of Middle-Earth" uniquely introduces the reader to the world of Medieval Literature through the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. Using key episodes in "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", readers are taken back to the work

When first published in 1982, A LITERATURE OF THEIR OWN quickly set the stage for the creative explosion of feminist literary studies that transformed the field in the 1980s. Launching a major new area for literary i

THE MAGICIAN'S BOOK is the story of one reader's long, tumultuous relationship with C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Enchanted by its fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an a

Political theorist and cultural critic, novelist and cricket enthusiast, C. L. R. James (1901 - 1989) was a brilliant polymath who has been described by Edward Said as "a centrally important 20th-century figure." Through such landmark works

In this fiercely original and audacious work, George Steiner tells of seven books which he did not write. Because intimacies and indiscretions were too threatening. Because the topic brought too much pain. Because

Newly famous in the wake of the publication of her groundbreaking "Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas", Gertrude Stein delivered her "Narration" lectures to packed audiences at the University of Chicago in 1935. Stein had not been back to her h

Although spectral Indians appear with startling frequency in US literary works, until now the implications of describing them as ghosts have not been thoroughly investigated. In the first years of nationhood, Philip Freneau and Sarah Wentwor

"A New Handbook of Literary Terms" offers a lively, informative guide to words and concepts that every student of literature needs to know. Mikics' definitions are essayistic, witty, learned, and always a pleasure to read. They sketch the de

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along - a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature has long been established as the leading reference resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers of English literature. It provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of English li

The best-selling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (formerly the Concise dictionary) provides clear, concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma. It is

First published in 1977, this classic reference work is a gazetteer of almost 2,000 places - villages, towns, cities, and landscapes - in Britain and Ireland detailing their connections with the lives of famous writer

This is the third volume of the acclaimed "Paris Review Interviews", described by Gary Shteyngart as a 'colossal literary event'.Since "The Paris Review" was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greate

'With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare.' George Bernard Shaw. From what Byron really thought of Keats to Sa

Over the past twenty years, Neil Gaiman has developed into the premier fantasist of his generation, achieving that rarest of combinations - unrivaled critical respect and extraordinary commercial success. From the la

The Raymond Chandler Papers brings together the correspondence and other previously uncollected writing of America's undisputed master of crime fiction and creator of the iconic private eye Phillip Marlowe, revealing all aspects of the great

In this major collection of his essays, Alberto Manguel, whom George Steiner has called 'the Casanova of reading', argues that the activity of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species. 'We come into

Long before there were creative writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says the author. She aims to present an inside look at how

It is easy to forget in our own day of cheap paperbacks and mega-bookstores that until very recently books were luxury items. Those who could not afford to buy had to borrow, share, obtain secondhand, inherit,

Get the lowdown on the best fiction ever written. Over 230 of the world's greatest novels are covered, from "Quixote" (1614) to Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" (2002), with fascinating information about their plots and the

Contains essays by authors on favourite books, including John Banville, Julian Barnes, Andrea Barrett, Peter Carey, Jim Crace, Michael Cunningham, Margaret Drabble, Stephen King, David Lodge, Norman Mailer, Claire Messud, Jo

Declan Kiberd argues that "Ulysses" offers a humane vision of a more tolerant and decent life under the dreadful pressures of the modern world. Leopold Bloom, the half-Jewish Irishman who is the book's hero, teaches the young Stephen Dedalus

Books hold the world's stories-from the earliest known myths and legends to postmodern fictions. They are also mirrors of many worlds - worlds here and distant, past and present, real and imagined - and thro