"A heart set on love will do no wrong," declared Confucius. This compact gift book presents an international assortment of romantic ruminations from ancient and modern philosophers, playwrights,...

“An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended.”—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the...

Eric Hayot teaches graduate students and faculty in literary and cultural studies how to think and write like a professional scholar. From granular concerns, such as sentence structure and grammar,...

Combining a dictionary and a thesaurus in a single volume, this book offers readers a convenient way to examine dictionary entries and research corresponding synonyms at the same time. The split-page...

Writers write—but what do they do for money?In a widely read essay entitled "MFA vs NYC," bestselling novelist Chad Harbach (The Art of Fielding) argued that the American literary scene has split...

The Compact Oxford German Dictionary covers over 90,000 words and phrases, and 120,000 translations of contemporary German and English. This handy reference book covers all the words you need, based...

The Compact Oxford Italian Dictionary covers over 90,000 words and phrases, and 120,000 translations of contemporary Italian and English. Includes all essential Italian and English words, based on...

In A Poet’s Guide to Poetry, Mary Kinzie brings her decades of expertise as poet, critic, and director of the creative writing program at Northwestern University to bear in a comprehensive reference...

An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and...

Sociolinguistics deals with the social life of language, language in its sociocultural context. It is a branch of linguistics that looks less at the shape or sound of words--morphology or...

Senior moment. Think outside the box. Idioms like these can't be understood just from the words that make them up. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms explores the meanings of idioms,...

Here's what started the phenomenon: the best seller, for over 15 years, that's been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny and candid look inside the movie...

The Art Of series is a new line of books reinvigorating the practice of craft and criticism. Each book will be a brief, witty, and useful exploration of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry by a writer...

Larousse Dictionary of Twentieth Century History

How many languages are there? What differentiates one language from another? Are new languages still being discovered? Why are so many languages disappearing? The diversity of languages today is...

Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. Stanley Fish appreciates fine sentences. The New York Times columnist and world-class professor has long been an aficionado of language. Like a...

Elegant ideas deserve elegant expression. Sword dispels the myth that you can’t get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions or eager...

The truth about English is that it can get pretty boring. Dangling modifiers, gerunds, punctuation marks--it's enough to make you want to drop out of high school. Swearing and sex on the other hand,...

But we must try to find our True Conscience, our True Self, the very Center, for this is the only first-rate choice-making center. Here lies all originality, talent, honor, truthfulness, courage and...

Early in the history of English, the words "grammar" and "glamour" meant the same thing: the power to charm. Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools and the forthcoming Help! For Writers, aims to...