Devoted to those practitioners of the art of short ficton, this edition offers thorough coverage of approximately 375 authors and 400 of their works. View More...
1989, The Reader's Catalog, American Booksellers Assoc. edition. (title and cover image varies from that shown: 208 categories, not 300). Moderate to heavy cover wear, solid binding, deeply aged text. A wonderful reference, despite its age. View More...
This practical guide to intelligent reading is in the best sense a ''how to'' book: it delivers the promise of its title. The authors review such subjects as the goals of reading, the significance of book titles, reading speeds, aids to reading, determining an author's message, and how to read poetry. Includes a long list of recommended works (from Homer to Solzhenitsyn). View More...
Inspired by a landmark exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 1963 to celebrate five eventful centuries of the printed word, Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a lively consideration of writings that have made things happen in the world, works that have both nudged the course of history and fired the imagination of countless influential people. In his fifth work to examine a specific aspect of book culture, Basbanes also asks what we can know about such figures as John Milton, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Hen... View More...
In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha turns to the great books for answers after undergoing a series of personal and family crises and learning that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics to educate herself during the Great Depression. Inspired by her example, Beha vows to read the entire Five-Foot Shelf, one volume a week, over the course of the next year. As he passes from St. Augustine's Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling... View More...
''Being a curmudgeon is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it,'' Birkerts announces, and proceeds to beautifully lament the quickening loss of the art of reading in our era of hypertextuality. By mixing memoir, historical narrative and cultural critique, Birkerts argues by example against cyberspace's flattening of history, where private memory is being supplanted by public software, vertical depth is overwhelmed by horizontal ''links,'' and hard-won, historical wisdom is losing ground to the evanescent present of the blinking cursor. While he concedes to certain advantages of a global inform... View More...
In his first book devoted exclusively to narrative fiction, America's most original and controversial literary critic and legendary Yale professor writes trenchantly about fifty-two masterworks spanning the Western tradition. Perhaps no other literary critic but Harold Bloom could--or would--undertake a project of this immensity. And certainly no other critic could bring to it the extraordinary knowledge, understanding, and insight that are the hallmark of Bloom's every book. Ranging across centuries and continents, this final book of his career, gives us the inimitable critic on Don Quixote a... View More...
A study of books through history is a study of human history. In The History of the Book in 100 Books, the author explores 100 books that have played a critical role in the creation and expansion of books and all that they bring -- literacy, numeracy, expansion of knowledge, religion, political theory, oppression, liberation, and much more. The book is ordered chronologically and divided thematically. Each of the 100 sections focuses on one book that represents a particular development in the evolution of books and in turn, world history and society. Abundant photographs inform and embellish... View More...
A rich resource for readers interested in the study of American culture.--'South Atlantic Review. 'The essays are noteworthy in their own right, and the collection overall is unified and coherent...'Reading in America' shows a field in its early stages that is attracting a group of extremely talented scholars.--'Journal of American History. View More...
"Will always hold an honorable place for bibliophiles." -- The University of Chicago PressOne of the earliest treatises on the value of preserving neglected manuscripts, building a library, and book collecting, Richard De Bury's The Philobiblon was written in 1345 and circulated widely in manuscript form for over a century. The first printed edition appeared in Cologne in 1473, and several others soon followed as the invention of the printing press spread throughout the late Medieval world. The chapter titles of this legendary work reflect its nature, combining the author's love for and commit... View More...
"Will always hold an honorable place for bibliophiles." -- The University of Chicago PressOne of the earliest treatises on the value of preserving neglected manuscripts, building a library, and book collecting, Richard De Bury's The Philobiblon was written in 1345 and circulated widely in manuscript form for over a century. The first printed edition appeared in Cologne in 1473, and several others soon followed as the invention of the printing press spread throughout the late Medieval world. The chapter titles of this legendary work reflect its nature, combining the author's love for and commit... View More...
Surveying the dizzying universe of classic books, Michael Dirda, the Pulitzer Prize-winning literary essayist, proves himself to be one of the most engaging critics of our time and great fun to read. Opening with an impassioned critique of modern reading habits, he then presents many of the great, and idiosyncratic, writers he loves most. In this showcase of one hundred of the world's most astonishing books, Dirda covers a remarkable range of literature, including popular genres such as the detective novel and ghost story, while never neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes overlooked... View More...
How to Read Novels Like a Professor is a lively and entertaining guide to understanding and dissecting novels, making reading more enriching and satisfying. In the follow up to his wildly popular How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster provides students with tried-and-true techniques to use in analyzing some of the most important works in literary history. How to Read Novels Like a Professor shows readers how to consider and a novel's historical fine points as well as major themes, literary models (the Bible, Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and fairy tales), and narrative devic... View More...
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 to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes--and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college p... View More...
