Literary Criticism

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...

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...

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,...

'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...

A lifetime in the making, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career. Containing over a hundred essays, this is a definitive guide to twentieth...

Foreword by William Sutcliffe, author of Are you Experienced?, New Boy and We See EverythingThe indispensable guide to writing for children and young adults, this Yearbook provides inspirational articles from...

*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*'The Life and Rhymes has a performative quality reminiscent of Zephaniah's poetry - honest, unshowy and ultimately unthreatening. It matches the man.' The Guardian...

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, and reissued for the first time in Scribner, a brilliant collection of essays, as well as brand new material, that...

This book examines the writings of the American novelist Ayn Rand, especially The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), which Rand considered her definitive statement about the need for an...

Warning signs are all around us. In ancient Egypt, tombs were lavishly adorned with signs and symbols warning of the dire consequences that would befall any robbers and thieves. And...

It's one of the most successful - and surprising - of phenomena in the entire crime fiction genre: detectives (and protodetectives) solving crimes in earlier eras. There is now an...

A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature--selected as the literature book of the year...

An irresistible collection of favorite writings from an author celebrated for his bravura style and sheer unpredictability Francis Spufford's welcome first volume of collected essays gathers an array of his...

'A gentle book and, like death itself, sometimes an unexpectedly kind one' Neil Gaiman'This is an absorbing and important book, seeking out stories so many shy away from and telling...

Art honours the world, and criticism honours art, even - perhaps especially - when the critic sets out to destroy. The bad review is hardly ever written out of mere...

"Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy - and the world." THE SUNDAY TIMESA delightful collection of original essays on reading and writing. From the internationally...

From the Booker-shortlisted author of The Mars Room, a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture.In The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner gathers a selection of her writing from...

A master of the novel, short story and memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Everybody's Foolnow gives us his very first collection of personal essays, thoughts on writing, reading and...

From A Long Long Way, his Booker shortlisted novel about the Irish soldiers who fought for Britain during the First World War to his Donal McCann starring hit-play, The Steward...

THE CONTROVERSIAL SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER.Candid, fearless and provocative - the author of American Psycho on who he is and what he thinks is wrong with the world today....

Set around a small family farm on the edge of a bog, a few miles from the river Shannon, Minor Monuments is a collection of essays unfolding from the landscape...

A dazzling account of the development of American cultural hegemony from one of the world's leading literary theorists. Franco Moretti, acclaimed author of Graphs, Maps, Trees and Distant Reading, distils...

In this frank, playful and typically unorthodox collection of essays, Alasdair Gray tells how his early life experiences influenced his writing, including the creation of those landmarks of literature, Lanark...

Over the last twenty years, critical discussion of Thomas Mann has highlighted the role of his homosexuality for his creative work. This not only is presented as a dynamic underlying...

A glimpse of post-war France through the eyes and words of 14 (mostly) expatriate journalists including Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A.J. Liebling, S.N. Behrman, Luc Sante, Joseph Mitchell, and Lillian...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019WINNER OF A WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZE 2017'I love this book' MAGGIE NELSON'An essay collection unlike any I've read' New York TimesIn Can You Tolerate This?...

A guide to correct forms of address in speech and correspondence. It covers both formal and social occasions, and includes the forms of address for bishops, peers, privy counsellors, ambassadors,...

'The author's prose is always a delight ... a book that manages the high-wire act of being genuinely funny while dispensing genuine wisdom' Times Literary SupplementWeek after week, for eighteen...