A brilliant, highly spirited memoir of Sidney Sheldon's early life that provides as compulsively readable and racy a narrative as any of his bestselling novels.
101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, each 1,001 words long, and with a time span stretching from the 19th century to the 21st.
A collection of letters between Arthur Conan Doyle (author and creator of Sherlock Holmes) and his mother, covering most of his life, written between 1867 and the year of her death in 1921.
The excellent fifth classic installment in the Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s - the novels that have inspired all Scandinavian crime fiction.
The final classic installment in the excellent Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s - the novels that have inspired all Scandinavian crime fiction.
The thrilling ninth classic installment in the Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s - the novels that have inspired all Scandinavian crime fiction.
the first clear anatomy of a confused decade, the 1990s - 'Bracewell, with great verve and style, animates the cultural conversation', Greil Marcus'Michael Bracewell is the most adroitly gifted writer of his generation.
From the 11th-century, when one commentator claimed the capital was being overrun with Moors, to the garage MCs and street poets of today - this book tells the story of life in London for black and Asian people from the 17th-century until today.
Winner of the Crossword Prize for non-fiction, '"e;Curfewed Night'"e; is a passionate and important book - a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore.
In this fascinating and erudite book, Bryan Cheyette throws new light on a wide range of modern and contemporary writers—some at the heart of the canon, others more marginal—to explore the power and limitations of the diasporic imagination after the Second World War.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, rural populations throughout Europe changed the language they used in everyday life, abandoning their traditional vernaculars—such as French patois, local Italian dialects, and the Irish language—in favor of major metropolitan languages such as French, Italian, and English.
The distinguished poet and critic argues for the abiding relevance of a great literary mind of the twentieth century Lionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as America’s preeminent literary critic, is today often seen as a relic of a vanished era.
In this wide-ranging and original account of Modernism, Michael Levenson draws on more than twenty years of research and a career-long fascination with the movement, its participants, and the period during which it thrived.
In an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1980, the critic Mary McCarthy glibly remarked that every word author Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, "e;including 'and' and 'the.
By the time she was twenty-four, Virginia Woolf had suffered a series of devastating losses that later she would describe as “sledge-hammer blows,” beginning with the death of her mother when she was thirteen years old and followed by those of her half-sister, father, and brother.
A loving and admiring companion for half a century to literary titan Ezra Pound, concert violinist Olga Rudge was the muse who inspired the poet to complete his epic poem, The Cantos, and the mother of his only daughter, Mary.
Jaime Manrique weaves into his own memoir the lives of three important twentieth-century Hispanic writers: the Argentine Manuel Puig, author of Kiss of the Spider Woman; the Cuban Reinaldo Arenas, author of Before Night Falls; and Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garca Lorca.
By the time she was twenty-four, Virginia Woolf had suffered a series of devastating losses that later she would describe as “sledge-hammer blows,” beginning with the death of her mother when she was thirteen years old and followed by those of her half-sister, father, and brother.
One of our most important contemporary critics, Marjorie Perloff has been a widely published and influential reviewer, especially of poetry and poetics, for over fifty years.
One of our most important contemporary critics, Marjorie Perloff has been a widely published and influential reviewer, especially of poetry and poetics, for over fifty years.
The essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the worldFor six decades the Penguin Modern Classics series has been an era-defining, ever-evolving series of books, encompassing works by modernist pioneers, avant-garde iconoclasts, radical visionaries and timeless storytellers.
A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020'Lovers of word games and literary puzzles will relish this indispensable anthology' The Guardian 'At times, you simply have to stand back in amazement' Daily Telegraph'An exhilarating feat, it takes its place as the definitive anthology in English for decades to come' Marina WarnerBrought together for the first time, here are 100 pieces of 'Oulipo' writing, celebrating the literary group who revelled in maths problems, puzzles, trickery, wordplay and conundrums.