Fresh, original and compelling, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at ‘the beginning’ and concluding with ‘the end’, the book covers topics that range from the familiar (character, narrative, the author) to the more unusual (secrets, pleasure, ghosts). Eschewing abstract isms, Bennett and Royle successfully illuminate complex ideas by engaging directly with literary works – so that a reading of Jane Eyre opens up ways of thinking about racial difference, whilst Chaucer, Raymond Chandler and Monty Python are all invoked in a discussion of literary laughter. Each chapter ends with a narrative guide to further reading and the book also includes a glossary and bibliography. The fourth edition has been revised to incorporate two timely new chapters on animals and the environment. A breath of fresh air in a field that can often seem dry and dauntingly theoretical, this book will open the reader’s eyes to the exhilarating possibilities of both reading and studying literature.

Product Description: How do you write a novel? Practising novelists and teachers of creative writing reveal their working methods and offer practical advice. Subjects covered range from magic realism to characterisation, surrealism to historical fiction, via perspective, plot twists and avoiding being boring, among many others...read more

Product Description: What is this thing called literature? Why should we study it? And how? Relating literature to topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the uncanny, this beautifully written book establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting and rewarding subject to study...read more

Product Description: An accomplished piece of metafiction by a creative writing professor, about a creative writing professor, writing a novel—complex, gripping, and extremely enjoyableEither First Novel is a darkly funny examination of the relative attractions of creative writing courses and public sex in parking lots, or it's a twisted campus novel and possible murder mystery that's not afraid to blend fact with fiction in its exploration of the nature of identity...read more

Product Description: Reflections on the figure of veering form the basis for a new theory of literature. Exploring images of swerving, loss of control, digressing and deviating, Veering provides new critical perspectives on all major literary genres: the novel, poetry, drama, the short story and the essay, as well as 'creative writing'...read more

Product Description: Freud observed that birds 'don't seem to be submitted to the same laws of gravity as us', although without gravity they would die, as they need it to swallow. Birds are all around us; they could not be more familiar. And yet at the same time they are alien, unheimlich - uncanny...read more

Product Description: Carl stumbles across part of a map to an unknown town. He becomes convinced it represents the city of his dreams, where ice skaters turn quintuple loops and trumpeters hit impossibly high notes.... where the girl of his dreams will agree to see him again...read more

Product Description: Facing the disarray and disorientation around his father’s death, a man contends with the strange and haunting power of the house his parents once lived in. He sets about the mundane yet exhausting process of sorting through the remnants of his father’s life—clearing away years of accumulated objects, unearthing forgotten memories, and the haunted realms of everyday life...read more

Product Description: An amateur goalkeeper is frozen solid in a moment of ecstasy as he makes his perfect save. A young man finds himself drawn into the autoerotic asphyxiation fantasies of his deceased uncle. A photographer navigates the rapids of London’s fashion-media elite and struggles to remain afloat in a sea of drugs...read more

Intent upon letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading these classic authors, the How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. Approaching the writing of major intellectuals, artists, and philosophers need no longer be daunting. How to Read is a new sort of introduction--a personal master class in reading--that brings you face to face with the work of some of the most influential and challenging writers in history. In lucid, accessible language, these books explain essential topics such as Shakespeare's passion for complexity and his enduring ability to portray the power of love. Nicholas Royle conveys the richness and complexity of Shakespeare's work by focusing, above all, on how to read and enjoy short passages and interpret specific words from the plays and poems themselves. Discussing poetry and the question of reading, to the nature of memory and forgetting, to the power of love, Royle covers many of Shakespeare's most prevalent themes. Attention is also given to important aspects of historical context and critical reception and debate, as well as to the effects of different interpretations and different media (stage, film, the Internet, and more). Royle's primary concern, however, is with letting the reader experience―anew or for the first time―the extraordinary pleasure and stimulation of reading Shakespeare. Extracts are taken from a range of Shakespeare's works including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, The Winter's Tale, and the Sonnets.

Product Description: “Whether Antwerp is a literate thriller or thrilling literature or—most likely—a combination of both, among other things it’s an irresistible meditation on the movies and all the memories and madness they evoke and inspire...read more

Product Description: Darkly intense stories ranging from police investigations in a surreal Manchester to the misfit comedy of American bar-room scams and heists, by way of misdeeds in the Little Moscow Café. Three writers offer idiosyncratic perspectives on a contemporary world drenched in noir.

Product Description: There are few figures more important in literary and critical theory than Jacques Derrida. Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's enormously influential texts, covering such topics as: deconstruction, text and difference; literature and freedom; law, justice and the 'democracy to come'; drugs, secrets and gifts...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Product Description: This is a collection of 23 football stories, including stories by Irvine Welsh, Iain Sinclair, Glyn Maxwell, Geoff Nicholson, Kim Newman, and Liz Jensen. It also includes poems about football by John Hegley. The plots involve a riotous Hibernian Saturday night and a hazardous visit to White Hart Lane...read more

Deconstructions: A User's Guide is a new and unusual kind of book. At once a reference work and a series of inventive essays opening up new directions for deconstruction, it is intended as an authoritative and indispensable guide. With a helpful introduction and specially commissioned essays by leading figures in the field, Deconstructions offers lucid and compelling accounts of deconstruction in relation to a wide range of topics and discourses. Subjects range from the obvious (feminism, technology, postcolonialism) to the less so (drugs, film, weaving). Backed up by an unusually detailed index, this User's Guide demonstrates the innumerable and altering contexts in which deconstructive thinking and practice are at work, both within and beyond the academy, both within and beyond what is called 'the West'. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This second edition is packed with literary stars and exciting new voices, including Maureen Freely, lain Sinclair, Kim Newman, Michael Moorcock, Esther Freud, Michele Roberts and Geoff Nicholson.

Product Description: A collection of stories, all featuring Paris as the backdrop. The list of contributors include writers from Britain, America and France.

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Product Description: A lucid and accessible reading of all the novels taking full account of recent critical work but avoiding theoretical jargon to present a new and original view of E.M. Forster's writing.

A collection of twenty-three short stories, by new and established American and British writers, creates a fascinating tour of the rich complexities of New York City, from Times Square to Greenwich Village, Chelsea to Central Park. Original. (view table of contents)