Believer, Issue 94
Andrew Leland et al (eds)
McSweeneys, PB, 9781936365951
The Believer's mission is to introduce readers to the best and most interesting work in the world of art, culture, and thought - whether that means literature, painting, wrestling, philosophy, or cooking - in an attractive vehicle that's free from the bugbears of condescension, mustiness, and jargony obfuscation. Its content (including essays, interviews, comics, poetry, and reviews) offers fresh perspectives from ... More/Buy
Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy
Martin S Indyk et al
Brookings Institution Press, HB, 9780815721826
How well has Barack Obama carried out his duties as U.S. commander-in-chief, top diplomat, and grand strategist? He has been unable to change the climate of Washington, and economic difficulties have dominated the first three years of his presidency. But his larger success or failure will likely hinge as much on foreign policy. In Bending History a trio of renowned foreign ... More/Buy
By The Book: A Reader's Guide to Life
Ramona Koval
Text Publishing, PB, 9781922079060
What is it about reading that we love so much? Why do books make our lives so much richer? Ramona's Koval's By the Book is about reading and living, and about the authors that have written themselves into her life: from Oliver Sacks to Oscar Wilde, Christina Stead to Grace Paley. It is about learning to read (and asking her mother ... More/Buy
Feminist Aesthetics and the Politics of Modernism
Ewa Plonowska Ziarek
Columbia University Press, PB, 9780231161497
Despite the prominence of feminist theory in literary, film, and visual arts critique, feminist theories of aesthetics remain rare, obscuring a crucial chapter in women's history. Ewa Plonowska Ziarek redresses this oversight through a full articulation of feminist aesthetics, focusing on the struggle for freedom in women's literary and political modernism and the devastating impact of racist violence and sexism. Her ... More/Buy
Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey
Lori Perkins (ed)
Smart Pop, PB, 9781937856427
Fifty Shades of Grey has gone from underground e-book sensation to runaway mainstream bestseller - it's the book everyone is talking about. Now, Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey extends the conversation women (and men!) are having across the world. The perfect panel of insiders - from the editor who first discovered Fifty Shades of Grey, to BDSM experts, ... More/Buy
The Holy Grail: History and Legend
Juliette Wood
University of Wales, PB, 9780708325247
Though only noted briefly in the Bible as the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail has over the centuries become the centerpiece of a rich tapestry of history, myth, and legend, to the point where its very name now symbolizes an elusive, perhaps unattainable goal. The Holy Grail: History and Legend provides a comprehensive cultural and historical ... More/Buy
The Ideal Bookshelf
Jane Mount
Little Brown, HB, 9780316200905
The books that we choose to keep - let alone read - can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In THE IDEAL BOOKSHELF, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most - books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the ... More/Buy
Reading Shakespeare
Michael Alexander
Palgrave, PB, 9780230230132
In a lively introduction to Shakespeare's life, career and the theatre of his day, Michael Alexander returns to the basics of how to read Shakespeare's works as literary texts. Surveying the most popular and widely-studied plays and sonnets, he elaborates upon the historical, cultural and literary contexts that surrounded their ... More/Buy
Shakespeare's Restless World
Neil MacGregor
Allen Lane, HB, 9781846146756
William Shakespeare lived through a pivotal period in human history. With the discovery of the New World, the horizons of Old Europe were expanding dramatically, long-cherished certainties were crumbling and life was exhilaratingly uncertain. What ideas and assumptions did Londoners bring with them when they went to see Shakespeare's plays in the 1590s and 1600s - what were they thinking? What ... More/Buy
Steampunk: Victorian Visionaries, Scientific Romances and Fantastic Fictions
Brian J Robb, James P. Blaylock
Aurum Press, HB, 9781781310267
Simultaneously a literary movement, ultra-hip subculture and burgeoning cottage industry, Steampunk is the most influential and arresting new genre to emerge from the late twentieth century. Spinning tales populated with clockwork Leviathans, cannon-shots to the moon and coal-fired robots, it charts alternative histories in which the British Empire never fell or where the atom remained unsplit. This wide-ranging, beautifully-illustrated and much ... More/Buy
Through the Window
Julian Barnes
Vintage, PB, 9780099578581
In these 17 essays (plus a short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the ... More/Buy
Unstuck In Time: A Journey through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels
Gregory D Sumner
Hunter Publishers, PB, 9780980863987
Unstuck in Time is a passionate and insightful journey through the life of one of America's most-loved author's, Kurt Vonnegut. Gregory Sumner guides us through Vonnegut's best known works, his fourteen novels starting with Player Piano, including the iconic Slaughterhouse Five, and all the way to an epilogue on his last book, A Man Without a Country, to illustrate the quintessential ... More/Buy