The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present
Eric R Kandel
Ecco, HB, 9781400068715
Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, takes us to Vienna 1900—the cultural capital of Europe. Artists & scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, & art. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive & erotic desires are repressed & disguised in ... More/Buy
The Event of Literature
Terry Eagleton
Yale University Press, HB, 9780300178814
Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of ‘literature’ at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean & do? In throwing new light on these & other questions he has raised in previous books, Eagleton offers a new theory of ... More/Buy
Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism
John Updike
Hamish Hamilton, HB, 9780241145524
'Gossip of a higher sort' was how the incomparable John Updike described the art of the review. Here then is the last collection of his best, most dazzling gossip. Influential reviews of Toni Morrison, John le Carre and Ann Patchett and expert critique on exhibitions of El Greco, Van Gogh and Schiele are included alongside previously uncollected short stories, poems and ... More/Buy
John Keats: A Literary Life
R S White
Palgrave, PB, 9781137030474
With scholarly elegance, this latest biography of Keats finds fresh links between the poet's work and his life. His five years as a medical student are considered in the formation of his thought, as are his political radicalism and philosophical ideas of life as a 'vale of soul-making' and of the 'three chambers' of the creative imagination. Keats is seen as ... More/Buy
Reading Jane Austen
Mona Scheuermann
Palgrave, PB, 9780230340190
An exploration of Austen's work against their historical and cultural backdrop to show precisely how she sets out the core themes of British morality. By situating the novels in such a remarkable era, Mona Scheuermann sharply defines Austen's view of the social ... More/Buy
Romantic Misfits
Robert Miles
Palgrave, PB, 781137018526
Perhaps the most significant event of the Romantic period was the explosion in print media. In an age of personality, writers strove for attention by dramatising their status as a 'neglected genius', someone who wrote, not for the mass-market or for profit, but for the discerning few. 'Romantic misfit' is the common term for this modern identity. However, where all Romantics ... More/Buy
Shelley and Vitality
Sharon Ruston
Palgrave, PB, 9781137011121
Shelley and Vitality, now in paperback and with a new Preface, reassesses Percy Shelley's engagement with late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century science and medicine, specifically his knowledge and use of theories on the nature of life presented in the debate between surgeons John Abernethy and William Lawrence. Ruston presents new biographical information to link Shelley to a medical circle and St ... More/Buy
Sherlock Holmes
Mark Campbell
Pocket Essentials, PB, 9781842438879
Who is Holmes? The world's most famous detective? A drug addict with a heart as cold as ice? A millstone around the neck of his creator? He's all of these things and much, much more. Sherlock Holmes was the brainchild of Portsmouth GP Arthur Conan Doyle. A writer of historical romantic fiction, Doyle became unhappy that the detective's enormous success eclipsed ... More/Buy
Some Remarks
Neal Stephenson
Atlantic, PB, 9781848878556
In this definitive collection of Stephenson's writings, journalism and meditations, the great American polymath puts the 20th Century - mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, currency, and the history of science and technology- under his eclectic and unflinching gaze. This remarkable collection brings together previously published short writings, both fiction and nonfiction as well as a new essay (and an extremely short story) created ... More/Buy
True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic
Brigid Cherry
I B Tauris, PB, 9781848859401
As seen in HBO's "True Blood", vampires have never been more edgy, gory or sexy. Since its arrival on screen in 2008, Alan Ball's adaptation of "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" by Charlaine Harris has exploited the creative freedoms of the HBO brand and captured a cult audience with its passionate, blood-drenched visuals and stories. From viral webisodes depicting vampires announcing themselves ... More/Buy