Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Description
"The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Reading isn't just a way to pass the time -- it's a lifestyle. Books shape, define, and enchant us. They are part of who we are and we can't imagine life without them. In this collection of charming and relatable reflections, beloved blogger and author Anne Bogel leads you to remember the book that first hooked you, the place where you first fell in love with reading, and all the books and moments afterward that helped make you the reader you are...
Author
Language
English
Description
"In a collection that includes new essays written explicitly for this volume, one of our sharpest and most influential critics confronts the past, present, and future of literary culture. If every outlet for book criticism suddenly disappeared -- if all we had were reviews that treated books like any other commodity -- could the novel survive? In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that,...
Author
Language
English
Description
The #1 New York Times–bestselling author’s “hilarious . . . idiosyncratic . . . delightful” and definitive companion to a global phenomenon (Publishers Weekly).
Douglas Adams’s “six-part trilogy,” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy grew from a blip of a notion into an ever-expanding multimedia universe that amassed an unprecedented...
Douglas Adams’s “six-part trilogy,” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy grew from a blip of a notion into an ever-expanding multimedia universe that amassed an unprecedented...
Author
Language
English
Description
When you hear a riveting story, does it thrill your heart and stir your soul? Clarkson discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage. Here she draws readers into the life-giving journey...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom commences this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threaten to eclipse the practice of reading,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A light-hearted book about books and the people who write them for all lovers of literature. Do you know: Which famous author died of caffeine poisoning? Why Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was banned in China? Who was the first British writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? What superstitions Truman Capote kept whenever he wrote? Who the other Winston Churchill was? A treasure trove of compelling facts, riveting anecdotes, and extraordinary...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The definitive biography of the world's most popular novel. Putting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general readership. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, T.S. Eliot was considered the greatest English-language poet of his generation. His poems The Waste Land and Four Quartets are classics of the modernist canon, while his essays influenced a school of literary criticism. Raised in St. Louis, shaped by his youth in Boston, he reinvented himself as an Englishman after converting to the Anglican Church. Like the authoritative yet restrained voice in his prose,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"No literary form is as admired and feared as poetry. Admired for its lengthy pedigree--a line of poets extending back to a time before recorded history--and a ubiquitous presence in virtually all cultures, poetry is also revered for its great beauty and the powerful emotions it evokes. But the form has also instilled trepidation in its many admirers mainly because of a lack of familiarity and knowledge. Poetry demands more from readers--intellectually,...
Author
Language
English
Description
Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker? Jason Baxter argues that Lewis was deeply formed not only by the words of Scripture...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
An impassioned case for argument's central role in human life, by one of America's most distinguished cultural critics.
"From Eve's crafty exchange with the serpent, to Martin Luther King's soaring, subtle ultimatums, to the throes of Twitter-argument's drainpipe-the human desire to prevail with words has been not just a moral but an existential compulsion. In this dazzling reformulation of argument, renowned critic Lee Siegel portrays the true art...
Author
Language
English
Description
"As an aging, tenacious Elizabeth I clung to power, a talented playwright probed the social causes, the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny. In exploring the psyche (and psychoses) of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Coriolanus, and the societies they rule over, Stephen Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the catastrophic consequences of its execution."--...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A meditation instructor and former English teacher shows how the great classics of Western literature illustrate the essential concepts of Eastern philosophy. The discussion includes works by authors such as John Keats, William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Frederick Douglass, and many others."--
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Harold Bloom, regarded by some as the greatest Shakespeare scholar of our time, presents an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of King Lear--the third in his series of five short books about the great playwright's most significant personalities, hailed as Bloom's "last love letter to the shaping spirit of his imagination" on the front page of The New York Times Book Review. King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Denby sat in on a tenth-grade English class in a demanding New York public school for an entire academic year, and visited other schools. He read all the stories, poems, plays, and novels that the kids were reading, and creates an impassioned portrait of charismatic teachers at work, classroom dramas large and small, and fresh and inspiring encounters with the books themselves. Lit Up is a dramatic narrative that traces awkward and baffled beginnings...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Written by mortician and forensic expert Carla Valentine, The Science of Murder explores the real-life cases that inspired Agatha Christie and shows how the great mystery writer may have kept up to date with the latest developments in forensic science, from ballistics to blood-splatter analysis. Valentine examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, impressions, and toxicology in Christie's novels, before finally revealing the role the...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools and practical advice needed to write a novel in a single year. In this complementary follow up, Mosley guides the reader through the fundamental building blocks of fiction to deliver a master class on the writer's craft. In a series of conversational and instructive chapters, Mosley breaks down the art of fiction to its most...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, is one of the most recognizable and mysterious figures in the Harry Potter series. As an unscrupulous beetle-like journalist once said, he's 'a biographer's dream.' Is he omniscient or limited? Is he benevolent or malevolent? What really drove him in the last years of an extraordinary life? Dumbledore dives between the lines of the Harry Potter books to create a portrait of the controversial...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Books, even obscure ones, are readily available online in the age of digital retail. As bookstores attempt to find their identity in a new era, some have survived by selling everything from toys to socks, coffee to stationery. In this short book, Jeff Deutsch, the director of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, aims to make the case for the value of spaces devoted to books and the value of the time spent browsing their stacks. It is a defense...
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Try our Materials Request Service. Submit Request