Literary History & Criticism

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

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....

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....

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

Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion’s first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the “best prose written in this country.”

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!). These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance....

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

From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars comes an enthralling literary adventure that introduces listeners to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process....

In The Kingdom of Cain, crime novelist, screenwriter, and cultural critic Andrew Klavan explores how artists' imaginative engagement with the evil of murder in film and literature can point us to ways of living honestly, beautifully, and even joyfully in a dark world.

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

Joan Didion is revealed at last in this “vivid, engrossing” (Vogue), and outrageously provocative dual biography “that reads like a propulsive novel” (Oprah Daily) revealing the mutual attractions—and antagonisms—of Didion and her fellow literary titan, Eve Babitz.

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....

Volume 2 of the Nobel Prize-winner’s towering masterpiece: the story of Solzhenitsyn's entrance into the Soviet prison camps, where he would remain for nearly a decade. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum....

Mythology succeeds like no other audiobook in bringing to life for the modern listener the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths and legends that are the keystone of Western culture....

The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters....

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read....

Few writers today have reshaped our view of the ancient Greek myths more than revered bestselling author Natalie Haynes. Divine Might is a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin....

Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time....

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures....

Over the course of a steamy and tense afternoon, twelve jurors deliberate the fate of a 19-year-old boy alleged to have murdered his own father....

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

Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived....

In the six lectures of Teenage Wastelands: A Guide to Dystopian Young Adult Fiction, award-winning YA author Sherri L. Smith will show you why dystopian stories have become so successful and why they continue to inspire. As you trace the history of dystopian stories and dive into some of YA’s most influential tales of the future, you’ll see why these often dark and challenging works have such a hold on the imagination. From The Giver to The Hunger Games to Orleans, dystopian tales allow us to grapple with hard questions and consider how we want to live—both now and in the future.

What is it about Stoicism that Marcus found so important then, and that millions find relevant today? In the 12 fascinating lectures of Books That Matter: Meditations, professor Massimo Pigliucci explores the questions Marcus believed were crucial to address in a life of value, the answers he proposed, and the many ways in which you can use Stoic philosophy. While Meditations was originally written for an audience of just one, what Marcus wanted to examine certainly still applies to us today. What exactly should we be mindful of in this life?

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters.

In the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, how to be a good girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood’s “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. In Trauma Plot, Hood draws on disparate literary forms to tell the story that lurked in good girl’s margins—of three decades marred by sexual violence and the wreckage left behind.

Transcendentalism remains the most important literary and philosophical movement to have originated in the United States. Most accounts of it trace its emergence to a group of intellectuals dissatisfied with their religious, literary, and social culture. Yet there is a forgotten history of transcendentalism that features women who were central to the development of the movement. Bright Circle is intended to reorient our understanding of transcendentalism. It recounts the lives of Mary Moody Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Lydia Jackson Emerson, and Margaret Fuller.

Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth is an experiment in interiority written in the pandemic studio. Something of a companion piece to 2009’s Bluets, Pathemata merges a pain diary chronicling a decade of jaw pain with dreams and dailies, eventually blurring the lines between embodied, unconscious, and everyday life.

100 years after Proust's death, In Search of Lost Time remains one of the greatest works in World Literature. At 3,000 pages, it can be intimidating to some. This short volume invites first-time listeners and veterans alike to view the novel in a new way. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was arguably France's best-known literary writer. He was the author of stories, essays, translations, and a 3,000-page novel, In Search of Lost Time (1913-27). This book is a brief guide to Proust's magnum opus.

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life—and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture. Baldwin's many incarnations have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin's work becomes a touchstone for a new generation. It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin—the man behind the prophet and the online meme—who is the focus of this book.

This Very Short Introduction introduces the life, work, and influence of one of the greatest dramatists of all time, Sophocles the Athenian. Placing his plays within their historical context, and explaining the conventions of ancient Greek tragic theatre, Edith Hall spotlights their distinctive features—tight plots, titanic personalities, lucid style, sympathetic women, exquisite poetry, and stagecraft. This analysis is followed by an account of how and why Sophoclean dramas have survived to be read and widely performed into the twenty-first century.

Now in the pantheon of great thinkers, Simone Weil (1909–1943) lived largely in the shadows, searching for her spiritual home while bearing witness to the violence that devastated Europe twice in her brief lifetime. The letters she wrote to her parents and brother from childhood onward chart her intellectual range as well as her itinerancy and ever-shifting preoccupations, revealing the singular personality at the heart of her brilliant essays. The first complete collection of Weil's missives to her family, A Life in Letters offers new insight into her personal relationships and experiences.

Na ponta da língua não busca ser um mero guia de etimologia. Mais do que ensinar ao leitor a origem das palavras, Caetano W. Galindo—autor de Latim em pó, êxito de crítica e público—nos dá as ferramentas para que possamos, também, ser investigadores do nosso português.

Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in the north of England to Sri Lankan Tamils, and moved to the United States five years ago. Considering identity in both its political and psychological senses, he leaps adventurously between memoir and criticism, understanding his life through poetry, and vice versa. This electric, compelling hybrid memoir discovers a new way of writing about the self and also literature.

The Hero and the Victim situates Iraq War fiction in war literature’s broader history. In contrast to the emphasis of most pre-modern war literature on the figure of the warrior-as-hero, and the growing modern emphasis on the figure of the soldier-as-victim, Iraq War fiction reflects the troubled emergence of a new narrative: the story of the ordinary soldier as a wrongdoer or even criminal.

In this Very Short Introduction, Anthony Welch places the Western epic canon alongside traditional heroic poetry from Asia, Africa, and the Near East. Tracing shared themes and practices that unite the world's epic literature, Welch examines the roles that epic poets serve in society and how epic storytelling differs from other narrative forms. Ranging widely from Gilgamesh to Derek Walcott's Omeros, the author acquaints listeners with some of the world's greatest literary works and asks why the epic holds such power over our imaginations.

Join us for a delightful journey into the culinary world of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel Little Women. In this special episode, host Niina is joined by writer Jenne Bergstrom, author of The Little Women Cookbook, as they explore the heartwarming and relatable chapter, “Domestic Experiences.” Perfect for fans of Little Women, history enthusiasts, and food lovers alike, this episode offers a delicious blend of literature and gastronomy. Tune in and let your imagination feast on the tastes and textures of a cherished classic!

John is the underrated love interest in the Little Women canon, but he is actually really great. He is a gentleman and a wonderful father and he adores Meg. I am joined by Little Women expert, the author of March Sisters Sweet Romance Book series, Jen Brady. In Jen's book "Falling for the tutor" we get John's point of view on things. What does he think about the March family and how did he fall in love with Meg? Join us in this wonderful discussion. We shall be discussing about Meg's character.

In The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball, author Christian Sheppard interweaves Homer’s epics with glorious stories from the green fields of America’s pastime, celebrating Achilles’ courage and Odysseus’ cunning along with the virtues of Hall of Fame players such as Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth and of great teams such as the 2004 Red Sox and the 2016 Cubs.

For 2500 years people have been debating how literature changes lives, and versions of those debates continue today in classrooms, school and library boardrooms, and state legislatures. The life-transforming potential of books caught the attention of Dante, Cervantes, Jane Austen, Percy Shelley, and many others. Better Living through Literature surveys what the great thinkers have said on the subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to W. E. B Du Bois, Harold Bloom, and Martha Nussbaum.

My guest Star is here to talk to us about Heroine's Journey and we are discussing the heroine's journey in Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and Jo's heroine's journey in Little Women. I was told that Gilbert's proposal to Anne in the 80s AOGG is almost exactly the same as Laurie's proposal to Jo in 1933 Little Women. Of course, I had to check if this was true and I have recorded these two proposals and mine and Star's reactions.

Plongez au cœur de l’ambition monumentale d’Honoré de Balzac avec cet Avant-propos, véritable clé de lecture de La Comédie Humaine. Dans ce texte fondateur, l’auteur expose sa vision grandiose : dresser le portrait fidèle de la société du XIXe siècle, en saisir les mécanismes cachés, les passions dévorantes et les luttes sociales impitoyables.