Literary Criticism

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The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting . . . is often a graceful blend of memoir and history.”

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“Lovecraft began writing when he was a teenager, crafting racist and politically reactionary poems and essays.

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The many readers and followers of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group will certainly be aware of her participation in this “bigoted blackface prank”—the Dreadnought Hoax —but are unlikely to ha

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“If she had not chased those bright Medusas, 20th century American literature would have not had one of its most beautiful voices.”

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Doyle’s World―Lost & Found attempts what is perhaps impossible: to shed new light and offer a fresh perspective on the oft-written about fictitious consulting detective, Sherlock Holme

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What exactly is internet art? Is it art made online? Art intended to be experienced on a browser?

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Can we recover our lost enchantment with the natural world before it turns on us?”

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Interviews are either appetizers or afterhours drinks. They either prepare you for a full conversation or one reads them to forget the long day.

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“Watling’s deep research allows her to mine intimate views of these women, in both their public and private lives, and to recreate how each took up the cause.”

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If the place of art is to ask difficult questions, not to provide easy answers, then Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma is art, as much as it is about art.

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“madness can be both a teacher and a scourge, can be transformative, can place us in the company of visionaries like William Blake as well as the residents of Bedlam.”

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The Written World and the Unwritten World reminds us why we write, why we read, and how that makes us human.”

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In this book recently released in paperback, poetry lovers will savor 100 compelling and beautifully rendered poems about grief, loneliness, and the human condition crafted over the past 200 years.

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“Gordon’s purpose has been to call attention to the vital role that women played in Eliot’s personal life and his development as a writer.”

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Seventy-four-year-old Art Spiegelman, creator of The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, never really liked his father. He grew up in Vladek’s shadow like a lot of children of Holocaust surv

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“Funny in a distinctly deadpan way. . . . the perfect book for anyone who cares about words and the many ways to have fun with them.”

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“This is more than an introduction to Canetti, the thinker, the writer, the man. It’s a profound portrait of a creative talent and the times he lived in.”

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“a writing guide that digs below thesis, punctuation, paragraphs, and sentence structure to offer a philosophical view of the art of written communication.”

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“A contemporary treatise on oppression wherever it exists, Read Dangerously raises Nafisi to new heights in the contributions she makes to writing and political analysis.”

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The Writer’s Crusade is an important consideration of Kurt Vonnegut and the legacy of Slaughterhouse-Five.”

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“A masterful job of bringing Orwell’s complex personality and incredibly prescient thinking vividly to life.”

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This powerful little book belongs to the Object Lessons series described by one admirer in the flyleaf as “the most consistently interesting non-fiction book series in America” (Megan Volpert,

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“In this short, stunning work, with his inimitable use of language, Baldwin distills the essence of his pain and wisdom and points a way for our own time.”

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in Philip Roth: The Biography, Blake Bailey provides ample evidence of his understanding of modern American literature and the frailties and achievements of an ar

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