Literary History & Criticism

Bonus material! Includes an excerpt from John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Obsession!

Discover the classic behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas' 25-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of...

An intellectual detective story, this history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain....

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from two-time Booker Prize winner and international best seller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light. In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical...

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”—Los Angeles Times From the beloved, legendary poet...

Seventeen of the bard’s most notable plays, from A Midsummer’s Night Dream to Romeo and Juliet, abridged and novelised for young listeners. This collection also includes the biography The Life and Times of William Shakespeare. Hours of audio fun to keep children entertained while on the move!...

'I wish I was half as critically respected as Garth Marenghi, even if I currently trounce him sales-wise (for now)' RICHARD OSMAN 'I bought all three novels of the TerrorTome trilogy in a bargain slipcase edition and have read two of them already. Albeit in the wrong order' DERMOT O'LEARY...

An “extraordinarily brilliant” and “pleasurably naughty” (André Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be. The theory that Shakespeare may...

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, Lucy Worsley has written an Introduction to her Sunday Times Bestselling biography - the book that leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

Over the course of a steamy and tense afternoon, twelve jurors deliberate the fate of a 19-year-old boy alleged to have murdered his own father....

A brilliant investigation into the motivations and methods, Dumbledore dives between the lines of the Harry Potter books to create a portrait of the controversial Headmaster....

For over 500 years, The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli has been one of the most influential—and controversial—works ever written on leadership, politics, and human nature.

A Passion for Passion is a love letter to romance fiction. It celebrates the joyful silliness of books that are written about pleasure and love.

OVER 100,000 COPIES SOLD | TRANSLATED INTO FIVE LANGUAGES | An aspiring author and a mysterious editor find love in this blend of humorous and sweet. | Perfect for fans of You've Got Mail and The Proposal. "Meet Me in the Margins is a delightfully charming jewel of a book that fans of romantic...

Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives....

The first English-language biography in over fifty years to tell the full, vibrant story of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, known to history as the Brothers Grimm.

This collection of writings from revered Native Americans offers timeless, meaningful lessons on living and learning....

An engaging, accessible guide to educating yourself in the classical tradition....

The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time....

Chico Xavier viveu seus 92 anos no limite. Com um pé na Terra e outro no além, fechou os olhos e pôs no papel poemas, crônicas, mensagens. Em mais de 500 livros publicados, mortos ilustres e anônimos consolam os vivos, pregam a paz e propagam o equilíbrio e a solidariedade. Para seus...

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life is the first work to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work....

Timothy Morton chooses the objects that have shaped and punctuated their life to tell the story of who they are and why they might think the way they do....

In this book novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences - the American poet Elizabeth Bishop....

Our enduring love of vampires - the bad boys (and girls) of paranormal fantasy - has persisted for centuries. Despite being bloodthirsty, heartless killers, vampire stories commonly carry erotic overtones that are missing from other paranormal or horror stories....

The Way of Dante is ideal for listeners, scholars, teachers, and students interested in The Divine Comedy; the works of Sayers, Lewis, and Williams; or the spiritual dimensions of storytelling.

“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —Time “It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature...

'I wish I was half as critically respected as Garth Marenghi, even if I currently trounce him sales-wise (for now)' RICHARD OSMAN 'I bought all three novels of the TerrorTome trilogy in a bargain slipcase edition and have read two of them already. Albeit in the wrong order' DERMOT O'LEARY...

In thirteen iconoclastic essays, Slavoj Žižek disrupts the death-grip that neoliberalists, Trumpian populists, toxic self-improvement industries and accelerationists alike have established on the idea of progress. Anatomizing what is lost when opponents of the future are allowed to define it, Žižek ruthlessly exposes what different visions of progress exclude or sacrifice and the dynamics of desire, denial and disavowal at work in Hollywood blockbusters, Buddhist economics, decolonization movements and other engines of vision.

Alice Fraser has a special place in her heart for the sweeping silliness of romance novels. The journey to reach a believable Happily Ever After can go via an unbelievable rollercoaster of intensity, through wildly entertaining twists and unlikely turns. To celebrate the unparalleled joy this genre can bring to listeners and defy its oft maligned status, Alice has created the author, D'Ancey LaGuarde, the ineffably mysterious, outrageously prolific, undisputed regent of the art of romance.

Renowned as a novelist, journalist, and humorist, Mark Twain is not only one of the most widely read and admired American writers, he is also among the most quoted. Wit and repartee permeate his work — from the short, light pieces to his great novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and even later, in dark meditations on the human condition where his humor takes on a cynical, satirical twist.

Writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby co-created the all-star group of six superheroes in September 1963. From there, just three main writers chronicled Earth's Mightiest Heroes in that most turbulent of decades: Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, and Jim Shooter, each with differing approaches. The Avengers quickly became the pivot around which the Marvel Universe turned. To look back through its issues is to get a crash course in '70s pop culture.

In Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Daredevil: Born Again, the comic's titular hero has his life destroyed after his most menacing enemy learns his real identity. His attempts to rebuild his life and sanity result in one of the most gripping and impactful superhero storylines of all time. Released in 1986, the storyline is an extraordinary exploration of what happens when a hero's identity is revealed, and his personal life completely annihilated. We see Daredevil reduced to the lowest depths in the character's history, but we also follow his painstaking path toward redemption.

What makes a person good? What does it mean to be evil? And what does it tell us about being human? Philosophers have been grappling with these questions for thousands of years, and they remain as pressing as ever in our present moment. Here we explore twelve thrillingly different approaches to this fundamental human predicament, each written by a different world expert.

Best known as the author of Moby Dick (1851), Herman Melville is one of America's greatest writers. His achievements range from popular novels and experimental fiction to powerful poetry. His works are tragic and funny, impassioned and ironic, obsessed with philosophical seeking and attuned to the details of everyday life.

In this book of essays, over forty successful writers in varied fields―poetry, science, the performing and visual arts, psychoanalysis, journalism, literature, and more―explore what drives them to write, and to work at their craft. In contributions arranged under three headings―"Models and Mentors," "Urges and Traumas," and "Evidence and Experiences"―each writer explores their personal understanding of writing as a psychological necessity. In varying ways, these candid, often emotional essays reveal a range of intimate, mysterious, and unpredictable purposes and motivations.

Doctor Strange, one of Marvel's most fascinating early characters, began at the hands of co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and his ethereal voyages through other dimensions made him an important figure in 1960s culture. Over his first ten years, a succession of writers and artists—including Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Gardner F. Fox, P. Craig Russell, Marie Severin, and notably Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner—expanded on Ditko's original mind-bending concepts.

Step beyond the ruins and into the pulse of ancient Rome—not the Rome of marble triumphs and imperial decrees, but of whispered spells, ghostly omens, and mythic memory. The Folklore of Rome: Myth, Magic, Dying, and the Making of the Empire is an immersive exploration of how stories, superstitions, and sacred rites shaped the world’s most enduring civilization from its legendary beginnings to its imperial zenith.

It is time Christians rediscovered the benefits of reading the great works of Greco-Roman classical literature as Christians. Can Christians today read the Greco-Roman pagan classics for spiritual formation and growth in the virtues? Classical scholar Nadya Williams responds with an...

When the metronome was invented in 1815, it transformed the music world. Composers and musicians now had a tool that could help them maintain a precise and consistent tempo. The metronome evokes strong feelings because of its uncompromising power. For that reason, this object has appeared in unlikely settings as athletes, scientists, psychologists, authors, and other professionals have found uses for it beyond music.

For fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, discover the story behind their unique friendship forged in the darkness of World War II and how it inspired the stories of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. In a world devastated by the cataclysm of...

Obligatorischer Absatz: Karl Kraus gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Aphoristiker deutscher Sprache. Ob berühmte Schriftsteller oder die Presse - nichts und niemand wurde von der Kritik seiner Feder verschont. Bekannte Künstler wie Stefan Zweig, Georg Trakl, Thomas Mann und andere zollten ihm Respekt, aber die Zahl seiner Feinde in Kunst und Gesellschaft war enorm. Als Vorleser hinterließ er aufgrund seiner Sprachgewalt und Persönlichkeit angeblich einen äußerst außergewöhnlichen Eindruck.