Books & Reading

The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781737847403Author John Matthew FoxFormat PaperbackPage Count 190Imprint BookfoxPublisher BookfoxWeight(grams) 245gDimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 11mm

Explaining both why theory is important and how to use it, Lois Tyson introduces beginning students of literature to this often daunting field in a friendly and readable style. The new edition of this textbook is clearly structured with chapters based on...

The perfect gift for book-loving friends and family, 50 Books to Read If You're an Armchair Detective will provide lots of inspiration for fans of cosy crime to discover lesser known books and revisit forgotten classics. Whether you're a Richard Osman...

Longlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown'A remarkable achievement' SpectatorIn the summer of 1705, a masked woman knocked on the door of a London printer's workshop. She did not leave her name, only a package and the promise of protection. Soon after, an...

The fascinating history of American bookishness as told through the sale of Charles Lamb's library in 1848 Charles Lamb's library-a heap of sixty scruffy old books singed with smoke, soaked with gin, sprinkled with crumbs, stripped of illustrations,...

First delivered as a speech to schoolgirls in Kent in 1926, this enchanting short essay by the towering Modernist writer Virginia Woolf celebrates the importance of the written word. With a measured but ardent tone, Woolf weaves together thought and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780316246255Author Alison LurieFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Little, Brown & CompanyPublisher Little, Brown & CompanyWeight(grams)...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781629635248Author Andrew NetteFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint PM PressPublisher PM Press

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. Since Hemingway's personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined and debated the changes made to the text before publication. Now this...

'Nobody writes like Sally Bayley' Lemn Sissay From the brilliantly original and critically acclaimed Sally Bayley, a literary story of working class childhood, absent or broken men and the power of literature to save and rebuild...

What would an anatomy of the book look like? There is the main text, of course, the file that the author proudly submits to their publisher. But around this, hemming it in on the page or enclosing it at the front and back of the book, there are dozens of...

Ian McEwan once said, 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary British women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives. Female readers are key to the...

Curious readers and fans of monsters and the macabre, get ready to bulk up your TBR piles! Sadie "Mother Horror" Hartmann has curated the best selection of modern horror books, including plenty of deep cuts. Indulge your heart's darkest desires to be...

War and Peace and Anna Karenina are widely recognised as two of the greatest novels ever written. Their author, Leo Tolstoy, has been honoured as the father of the modern war story; as an innovator in psychological prose and forerunner of stream of...

Related to ideas of the great, the awe-inspiring and the overpowering, the sublime has been debated for centuries amongst writers, artists, philosophers and theorists and has become a complex yet crucial concept in many disciplines. In this thoroughly...

This book discusses the largest and earliest medieval library of the Middle East for which we have documentation the Ashrafiya library in the very centre of Damascus and edits its catalogue.About the AuthorKonrad Hirschler is Professor of History of...

In a recent sale catalog, one bookseller apologized for the condition of a sixteenth-century volume as "rather soiled by use." When the book was displayed the next year, the exhibition catalogue described it as "well and piously used [with] marginal...

In this third Why I Write volume, Eileen Myles addresses the social, political, and aesthetic conditions that shape their work "A sharply etched, unvarnished self-portrait."-Kirkus Reviews "[Myles] has a good time journeying through Hell, and like a...

'The moment I got my job at Virago in 1978 I knew it would be a long time before I would leave. I certainly wouldn't have had the brazen hope then-only twenty-five and very recently new to Britain-that I would ever become the Publisher, but I did know...

'The professor, the critic and the novelist work in harmony to provide a valuable tutorial on modern fiction' ObserverHow does the novel represent human consciousness on the page?In eleven sparkling essays on some of the great novelists of the last 200...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781400033188Author Jane SmileyFormat PaperbackPage Count 608Imprint Alfred A. KnopfPublisher Alfred A. KnopfWeight(grams) 413g

______________ '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' - Observer 'One of the great prose stylists of our time ... There are few paragraphs that...

The fear of oblivion obsessed medieval and early modern Europe. Stone, wood, cloth, parchment, and paper all provided media onto which writing was inscribed as a way to ward off loss. And the task was not easy in a world in which writing could be...

Ian McEwan once said, 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives. Female readers are key to the future of fiction...

Stuff I've Been Reading by Nick Hornby - the bestselling novelist's rich, witty and inspiring reading diary'Read what you enjoy, not what bores you,' Nick Hornby tells us. And in this new collection of his columns from the Believer magazine he shows us...

From "the man on whom nothing was lost," a unique guide to the elements of statecraft, presented through spirited interpretations of classic literary works "The international world of states and their modern system is a literary realm," writes Charles...

"The Art of Fiction" is essential, thoroughly entertaining reading for writers, students and anyone who wants to understand how literature works. The articles by David Lodge, which first appeared in the "Independent on Sunday", are expanded here and...

"This book was crying out to be written." The Irish Times "Scandalously readable." Literary Review James Joyce's relationship with his homeland was a complicated and often vexed one. The publication of his masterwork Ulysses - referred to by The...

A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Purity, Freedom and The Corrections In The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five...

Erudite, witty and often controversial, The London Review of Books informs and entertains its readers with a fortnightly dose of the best and liveliest of all things cultural.This anthology brings together some of the most memorable pieces from recent...

Since its publication in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye has been a cultural phenomenon, not only as an assigned text for English courses, but as a touchstone for generations of alienated youth. As the focus of recent major films and a successful...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780399532382Author Ian C. EllisFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint TarcherPerigeePublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 346gDimensions(mm) 208mm *...

How to Read provides guidance and reflections on the love and enjoyment of books. Engaging and enlightening, this well-rounded collection includes Lewis' reflections on science fiction, why children's literature is for readers of all ages, and why we...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593234617Author New York TimesFormat HardbackPage Count 336Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

'A brilliant, unlikely book' SpectatorHow can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world? In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe's 196 independent...

A vivid exploration of the evolution of reading as an essential social and domestic activity during the eighteenth century Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and...

It's time to diversify your reading list. This richly illustrated and vastly inclusive collection uplifts the works of authors who are often underrepresented in the literary world. Using their keen knowledge and deep love for all things literary,...

'Like all good diarists Paling's musings are funny, tender and uncensored' Sunday Times6 April 2007Writing income for the year so far: minus GBP300'I feel that this might just be the year in which something happens. Then again it might not. But hope...

A sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in written culture and human imagination over three millennia "Richly detailed and illustrated. . . . An engaging exploration of book history."-Kirkus Reviews For centuries, premodern...