How black writers’ travel to Paris contributed to the transatlantic circulation of art and ideas.Paris has always fascinated and welcomed writers. Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, writers of American, Caribbean, and African...

From the author of the definitive biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, never-before-published lectures that provide an accessible introduction to the Russian writer's major worksJoseph Frank (1918–2013) was perhaps the most important Dostoevsky biographer,...

A literary master's entertaining guide to reading with deeper insight, better understanding, and greater pleasure--"English 101 in a book." (Michael Lindgren, Washington Post) What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader...

Literary studies in the postwar era have consistently barred attributing specific intentions to authors based on textual evidence or ascribing textual presences to the authors themselves. Obscure Invitations argues that this taboo has blinded us to...

New feminist essays for the #MeToo era from the international best-selling author of Men Explain Things to Me. Who gets to shape the narrative of our times? The current moment is a battle royale over that foundational power, one in which women, people...

A historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee traces the birth of modern horror movies and literature back to World War I, exploring how the conflict influenced H.P. Lovecraft, Franz Kafka, and other artists of the genre. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein’s...

For word nerds, language loons, and grammar geeks, an impassioned and informative literary leap into the wonders of the Greek language. Here are nine ways Greek can transform your relationship to time and to those around you, nine reflections on the...

Boitani's presentation of the classics is as entertaining and unexpected as it is informative. He invites the reader to discover the timeless beauty and wisdomof ancient literature, highlighting its profound and surprising connections to the present...

Available in a new edition and with an introduction by Margaret Atwood, Payback delivers a surprising look at the topic of "debt" -- a subject that continues to be timely. Legendary novelist, poet, and essayist Margaret Atwood delivers a surprising look...

"A classic of the genre."--New York Times The 30th anniversary edition of Tobias Wolff's "extraordinary memoir" (SF Chronicle), now with a new introduction by the author. Thirty years ago Tobias Wolff wrote a memoir that changed the form. The...

Over the last few decades, character-based criticism has been seen as either naive or obsolete. But now questions of character are attracting renewed interest. Making the case for a broad-based revision of our understanding of character, Character...

People in the Middle Ages had chantry chapels, mortuary rolls, the daily observance of the Office of the Dead, and even purgatory—but they were still unable to talk about death. Their inability wasn’t due to religion, but philosophy: saying someone is...

The constant call to admit guilt amounts almost to a tyranny of confession today. We demand tell-all tales in the public dramas of the courtroom, the talk shows, and in print, as well as in the more private spaces of the confessional and the...

The book's first section is a tete-a-tete with Emma Bovary; the second traces the gestation and birth of the novel, as well as Flaubert's method, his mania for documentation, and the novel's literary sources; the third situates it in literary history...

The bestselling exploration of the dimensions of love, marriage, mourning, and kinship from two-time Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy.A New York Times Notable BookA New York Public Library Best Nonfiction Book of 2018What does it cost a woman to...

The Patch is an “album quilt,” an artful assortment of nonfiction writings by John McPhee that have not previously appeared in any bookThe Patch is the seventh collection of essays by the nonfiction master. It is divided into two parts. Part 1, “The...

“Once you’ve become a part of this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.” Ernest Hemingway once said of Nelson Algren’s writing that “you...

Remarkable reinterpretation of Milton and his poetry by one of the most famous historians of the 17th CenturyIn this remarkable book Christopher Hill used the learning gathered in a lifetime's study of seventeenth-century England to carry out a major...

In his own time (701–762), Li Bai’s brilliant poems—shaped by Daoist thought, filled with an irrepressible lust for life—were never given their proper due. Nonetheless, his lines rang out on the lips of tavern singers, soldiers, and writers throughout...