Literary Criticism

From the creator of UlyssesGuide.com, this essential guide to James Joyce's masterpiece weaves together plot summaries, interpretive analyses, scholarly perspectives, and historical and biographical context to create an easy-to-read, entertaining,...

Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labour, Ernaux's father had grown...

A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John GreenThe Anthropocene is the current geological age, in...

The most trusted anthology for complete works and helpful editorial apparatus. The Tenth Edition supports survey and period courses with NEW complete major works, NEW contemporary writers, and dynamic and...

A landmark, incendiary collection from one of the leading essayists working today.Inspiring everyone from radical activists to Beyonce Knowles, Rebecca Solnit's essay 'Men Explain Things to Me' has become a...

A provocative and absorbing analysis of the unprecedented eruption of misogyny at the turn of the century in the works of the key artists of the age. Illustrated throughout.

Finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism'Nothing about Jenny Diski is conventional. Diski does not do linear, or normal, or boring ... highly intelligent, furiously funny' Sunday Times'Funny, heartbreaking, insightful...

Colm Toibin's personal account of encountering James Baldwin's work, published in Baldwin's centenary year. Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Toibin first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He had completed...

In the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to eleven. Amanda Montell blends cultural criticism and personal narrative to explore our...

The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is...

'This marvel of a book is a profound meditation on the precariousness of the planet ... these pieces kept bringing tears to my eyes, catching me offguard ... it is...

'The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful.'These two classic essays were the first works of criticism to break down the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture, and made...

In these delightful, melancholy prose sketches Maeve Brennan goes in pursuit of the ordinary, taking us on a tour of the cheap hotels, unassuming restaurants, and crowded streets of New...

The works of Shakespeare have become staples of literature. They are everywhere, from our early schooling to the lecture rooms of academia, from classic theatre to modern adaptations in popular...

A far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free...

From the acclaimed author of The Most Dangerous Book, the incredible true story behind the creation of a masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and PunishmentIn the summer of...

A TRUE STORY THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF THOUSANDS'Unmitigated delight from cover to cover' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read...

Kerryman Con Houlihan, who in his time has been a fisherman, a turf cutter and a rugby player, is now best known as one of Ireland's finest journalists. 'In So...

'Much reading is like much eating, wholly useless without digestion' - R. South'If I had read as much as other men, I should have been as ignorant as they' -...

A selection of Robert Fisk's finest 'Comment' pieces from the Saturday 'Independent'. Robert Fisk has amassed a devoted readership over the years, with his insightful, witty and always outspoken articles...

A great American writer's confrontation with a great European critic - a personal and intellectual awakening. Karl Kraus: satirist. Controversialist. Forgotten voice of the early twentieth century. Jonathan Franzen: bestseller....

The title, The Government of the Tongue, carries suggestions of both monastic discipline and untrammelled romanticism, and is meant to raise an old question about the rights and status of...

** Chosen as a New Statesman, Financial Times, Observer and Sunday Times Book of the Year **A riveting account of the making of T. S. Eliot's celebrated poem The Waste...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAs Heard on NPR's This American Life'The delights he extols here (music, laughter, generosity, poetry, lots of nature) are bulwarks against casual cruelties . . ....

The bestselling international classic on storytelling and visual communication "You must read this book." - Neil Gaiman Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening,...

Set in and around the city of Veracruz in Mexico, This Is Not Miami delivers a series of devastating stories - spiralling from real events - that bleed together reportage...

Every living thing has two bodies. To be an animal is to be in possession of a physical body, a body which can eat, drink and sleep; it is also...

While Frank O'Connor was known primarily as one of Ireland's finest short-story writers, he was also an accomplished translator. In the long line of Irish writers given to translating poems...

The sequel to I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' Barack ObamaMaya Angelou's volumes of autobiography are a testament to...

From 'Best of the Booker' winner Salman Rushdie, an incisive and inspiring collection of non-fiction essays, criticism and speeches that takes readers on a thrilling journey through the evolution of...

What do we mean when we claim affinity with an object or picture, or say affinities exist between such things?Affinities is a critical and personal study of a sensation that...

'So bold and so vulnerable at the same time. I don't know how she did it' - Phoebe Waller-BridgeNow with an introduction from Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know...

Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labour, Ernaux's father had grown...

"Devotion is short enough to devour at one enjoyable sitting and thought-provoking enough to deserve re-reading."-Suzi Feay, Financial Times "Devotion shows rather than tells what it means to give a...

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM 2019From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Changing My Mind and Swing Time - discover a second...

In this entertaining and enlightening collection David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane...

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster's classic guide-a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how...

Jayne A. Quan writes with honesty and humour about key moments in their life and transition. With lyric insight and quiet clarity, Quan navigates the intersection of loss, grief, memory...

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...

A Guest at the Feast uncovers the places where politics and poetics meet, where life and fiction overlap, where one can be inside writing and also outside of it.From the...

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....

A Sunday Times BestsellerChristopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a matchless writer, debater and humanist. Throughout his life he shone the light of reason and truth into the eyes of charlatans and...