Essays

Defense of a poet, and five speeches from after exile.Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106-43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise,...

The lives of people both famous and obscure are filled with moments when their dirty laundry sees daylight. At such times we witness the reversibility of success, of prominence, but also come to terms viscerally with our own most vulnerable selves. We...

William Morris is perhaps best known today for the beautiful textile designs he created under the banner of Morris & Co, which continue to decorate homes around the globe. As one of the leading lights of British socialism, however, he is less well known,...

Ted Hughes has written a series of pieces on writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath; and on his deep-rooted concern over education, the environment and the arts.About the AuthorTed Hughes (1930-1998)...

With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels he illuminates the art and artists who remain important to him and whose work helps us better understand the world. An astute and brilliant reader of fiction, Kundera applies...

This volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series offers students an authoritative, comprehensive selection of the work of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859). The edition presents De Quincey's work in all of its rich variety, and offers the most thorough...

A milestone in feminist literature, this marvelous European romance, narrated by a woman, is considered the first psychological novel in a modern language and a precursor of stream-of-consciousness fiction. Written by Giovanni Boccaccio between 1343 and...

Borges takes us on a startling, idiosyncratic, fresh, and highly opinionated tour of English literature, weaving together countless cultural traditions of the last three thousand years. Borges's lectures - delivered extempore by a man of extraordinary...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307388681Author Gore VidalFormat PaperbackPage Count 480Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 391gDimensions(mm) 203mm * 132mm...

'One of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction' Sunday Times 'The most commanding and exciting and inventive rhetorical virtuosity of any writer alive... [He] nailed it like nobody else ever had' Jonathan Franzen'[He was] first...

This anthology of medieval writing provides a context for a deeper understanding of the Gawain-poet's originality and skill. The intertextuality of this brilliant poem can be more fully understood through Elisabeth Brewer's presentation of modern...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780993125904Author Wendy MulfordFormat PaperbackPage Count 274Imprint Dunlin PressPublisher Dunlin Press

A beautiful and elegant collection, with gorgeous full-color art reproductions, Looking at Pictures presents a little-known side of the eccentric Swiss genius: his great writings on art. His essays consider Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rembrandt, Cranach, Watteau,...

Edited and translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, "The Portable Machiavelli" not only gives the casual reader a chance to read different personal and professional works of Machiavelli, but also strives to do away with many of the myths that have...

Ursula K. Le Guin has won or been nominated for over 200 awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master Awards. She is the acclaimed author of the Earthsea sequence and The Left Hand of Darkness - which alone...

'It's brave and honest, and not a moment too soon.' Afua Hirsch, Brit(ish)'[An] outstanding myth-busting book. Everyone should read it.' Bernardine EvaristoWhat is the experience of Black men in Britain today? Never has the conversation about racism and...

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 spite. In most cases, the motivation is disappointed idealism. Critics are people who...

In these seventeen essays (and one short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780812975093Author Lawrence BuellFormat PaperbackPage Count 608Imprint Modern Library IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 408gDimensions(mm)...

Orwell demonstrates in piece after piece how intent analysis of a work or body of work gives rise to trenchant aesthetic and philosophical commentary. As a critic, George Orwell cast a wide net. Equally at home discussing Charles Dickens and Charlie...

In this collection of eight witty and sharply written essays, Orwell looks at, among others, the joys of spring (even in London), the picture of humanity painted by Gulliver and his travels, and the strange benefit of the doubt that the public permit...

Annie Dillard has spent a lifetime examining the world around her with eyes wide open, drinking in all things intensely and relentlessly. Whether observing a sublime lunar eclipse or a moth consumed in a candle flame, the trembling of lily pads on a pond...

This simple, utilitarian edition offers sixth-form and undergraduate students an introduction to the enchanted, sometimes violent, often sad, often funny world of the "Metamorphoses." Book III is ideal in this respect, for it possesses a...

A group of notable writers-including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow-celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past What can a...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781617757662Author Ian F SvenoniusFormat PaperbackPage Count 270Imprint Akashic Books,U.S.Publisher Akashic Books,U.S.

No one has written more, or more artfully, about Japan and Japanese culture than Donald Richie. Richie moved to Tokyo just after World War II. And he is still there, still writing. This book is the first compilation of the best of Richie's writings on...

On foot the world comes our way. We get close to the Continent's alpine ranges, arterial rivers, expansive coastlines. Close to its ancient cities and mysterious thoroughfares; and close to the walkers themselves-the Grand Tourers and explorers,...

From the New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders, a lyrical book of short essays about food, offering a banquet of tastes, smells, memories, associations, and marvelous curiosities from natureIn Bite by Bite, poet and essayist Aimee...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781598536409Author Harold BloomFormat HardbackPage Count 436Imprint The Library of AmericaPublisher The Library of AmericaWeight(grams) 709gDimensions(mm)...

Three late dialogues.Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106-43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in...

A testament to the energy and creativity of a writer and journalist without equal, Charles Dickens's Selected Journalism 1850-1870 is edited with an introduction and notes by David Pascoe in Penguin Classics.Throughout his writing career Charles Dickens...

A continuation of Thucydides.Xenophon (ca. 430 to ca. 354 BC) was a wealthy Athenian and friend of Socrates. He left Athens in 401 and joined an expedition including ten thousand Greeks led by the Persian governor Cyrus against the Persian king. After...

'De Botton is a national treasure.' - Susan Hill, author of The Woman in BlackA unique love story and a classic work of philosophy, rooted in the mysterious workings of the human heart and mind.Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there...

Seductive verse.Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BC-AD 17), born at Sulmo, studied rhetoric and law at Rome. Later he did considerable public service there, and otherwise devoted himself to poetry and to society. Famous at first, he offended the emperor...

'How is the mind agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world!' - William Bartram 'Thus you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would have us believe.' -...

A second volume of fascinating interviews from one of the world's best loved literary magazinesSince The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are...

Before publishing the sensuous and scandalous poems of Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) had already earned respect as a forthright and witty critic of art and literature. This stimulating selection of criticism reveals him as a worshipper...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780679728955Author H.L. MenckenFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 278gDimensions(mm) 203mm *...

Burnt-out at twenty-three, Rimbaud has become a model for the poet as wayward genius. Nevertheless, he wrote a substantial amount of lyric and dramatic verse in his few years of activity. This volume contains all his mature output, together with several...

Decades of violence and chaos have generated a political and intellectual hysteria-ranging from imperial atavism to paranoia about invading or hectically breeding Muslim hordes-that has affected even the most intelligent in Anglo-America. In Bland...