Literary History & Criticism

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....

In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town....

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic....

Patrick Hastings provides comprehensive support to readers and listeners of Joyce's magnum opus by illuminating crucial details and reveling in the mischievous genius of this unparalleled novel....

In You Can’t Joke About That, Kat Timpf shows why much of the way we talk about sensitive subjects is wrong....

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....

All Souls fans have been captivated from the start by the many sources of inspiration Harkness draws on in her novels. Here, with her signature historian's touch, she offers an encyclopedic look at the series, complete with synopses, character bios, maps, recipes, and more....

From the acclaimed author of American Comics and Jewish Comedy comes a highly entertaining book that examines the American obsession with horror—and what it tells us about ourselves.

Notes of a Native Son inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the 20th century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic....

In Tending the Heart of Virtue, Vigen Guroian illuminates the power of classic tales and their impact on the moral imagination. He demonstrates how these stories teach the virtues through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil....

For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us....

Batman is one of the most compelling characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased since his first appearance in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us?

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works....

Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and, most importantly, enjoyment....

Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface....

One of William Faulkner’s finest novels, As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren’s family sets out to fulfill her last wish....

Sir Ian McKellen, fresh from his performance as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, is Prospero, and heads a strong cast in Shakespeare’s last great play....

For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative....

A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour....

From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist: One In a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned....

Jennifer Pepito was intent on loving her children well, but fear and worry pushed her around. Ultimately, she found joy in a most surprising place: the pages of classic literature she was reading aloud to her children every day. These stories helped her reclaim the wonder of childhood....

In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality.

The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave is a study of slave making....

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics....

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant....

James Krasner, an expert in Victorian literature, takes you on a fascinating journey into the enduring power of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You’ll learn how these three literary masters structured their novels to offer not only scares but also complex insights into cultural debates that still matter to us today.

The glamorous extravagances and devastating lows of her time in Hollywood are revealed as never before in this fresh new biography of Dorothy Parker—from leaving New York City to work on numerous classic screenplays such as the 1937 A Star Is Born to the devastation of alcoholism, a miscarriage, and her husband’s suicide. Parker’s involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, which led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early work in the civil rights movement that inspired her to leave her entire estate to the NAACP are also explored as never before.

This telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Jane famously lived a 'life without incident', but with new research and insights Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom. A woman who far from being a lonely spinster in fact had at least five marriage prospects, but who in the end refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy.

In American Scary, noted cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes the listener to the startling origins of the horror genre in the United States, drawing a surprising through-line between the lingering influence of the European Gothic, the enslaved insurrection tales propagated by slaveholders, and the apocryphal chronicles of colonial settlers kidnapped by Native Americans, among many others.

From ancient times to the present day, The World in Books offers a wide-ranging historical education through pleasure reading—and a fantastic introduction to some of the most thought-provoking, profound, and interesting nonfiction works of all time. From Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to bell hooks’s All About Love, as well as such recent classics as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, Davis’s guide suggests a world of nonfiction books and explains just why they’re so historically meaningful and culturally relevant today.

Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University nine days before October 7th, 2023. The text of Hammad’s seminal speech and her afterword, written in the early weeks of 2024, together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what seems a turning point in the narrative of human history. Profound and moving, Hammad writes from within the moment, shedding light on the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

In this groundbreaking work, Sara Ahmed demonstrates how queer studies can put phenomenology to productive use. Focusing on the “orientation” aspect of “sexual orientation” and the “orient” in “orientalism,” Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being “orientated” means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached.

Dionne Brand explores English and American literature, and the colonial aesthetic that shaped her sense of self and the world, of what was possible and what was not.

Forty essays on history, art, and literature to lift your mind and spirit. Guy Davenport serves as the listener's guide through history and literature, providing links between music and sculpture, modernist poets and classic philosophers, the past and present-pointing out the values and avenues of thought that have shaped our ideas and our thinking.

If you like to write—whether it's a pastime, a passion, or a profession—you've probably found yourself reading something brilliant and thinking, "I could never do this! I might as well give up." But if there's one thing every great author has in common, it's this: they've all written some hot garbage. Revisionaries takes you on an engrossing tour through the discarded drafts, false starts, and abandoned projects of influential writers. In the process, it dismantles some of our most deeply held—and most suffocating—ideas about what it takes to produce great creative work.