Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

From one of the most important chroniclers of our time, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks–writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations...

Bloomsbury presents A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup, read by Nicky Diss. Shortlisted for the BMA Book Awards and Macavity Awards 2016 Fourteen novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn’t mean it's all made-up ... Agatha Christie revelled in the use of poison to kill off...

Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain's most recognisable and well-loved actors. He has played many roles on stage, film, television and radio - ranging from Winston Churchill to Stalin, George Smiley to King Arthur. But ever since his appearance at school as a glamorous Desdemona, complete with false eyelashes that rendered him half-blind, he has been captivated by Shakespeare.

A Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph and Economist LONGLISTED for the CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2026 'This book reads like a spy novel' FINANICAL TIMES 'Entertaining and vivid' OBSERVER...

C S Lewis’s philosophical defence of Natural Law (absolute morality) – without which human beings are reduced to less than fully human, and are, thus ‘abolished’. CS Lewis argues that objective value actually exists and that to believe otherwise is to create nonsense. Human beings...

Our agent, a man named Mr Verloc, minds his own business while he keeps his shop in London's Soho, alongside his wife, who attends to her aged mother and disabled brother. Their lives are turned upside down when Verloc is reluctantly employed to plant a bomb and destroy an observatory in London. What was once the perfect bomb plot inevitably turns awry and Verloc, his family and his associates are forced to face the consequences.

Novelists, poets and playwrights live double lives, sharing the real world with everyone else while spending a good deal of time in a universe of their own making. When they fall out with each other, they are able to kindle feuds and antagonisms as passionate and public as workers in any trade. Richard Bradford’s highly entertaining audiobook looks at some of the closest and most complex relationships in literary history, examining their dramatic effects on literature itself.

Eight dragon shifters rule the world, but then ordinary human Caden Bryce becomes the ninth, destined to be a mate to one of the eight. Yet all Caden wants is his old life back. Dragon King Valerius, most powerful of all the dragon shifters, is none too pleased to find another dragon in his territory. But when the other dragon shifters come to court Caden, Valerius finds that he wants Caden as his own. Read aloud by the author. Republished from the original feed, mistakes and all, just in its own podcast now.

An absolutely joyous, gasp-out-loud achievement. - Stephen Fry A cathedral of consciousness - Shakespeare's uncanny insight into human nature finds us, unearthed here. - LionHeart, artist, poet, and BBC Radio London presenter Shakespeare had an ear and hand that was able to capture our everyday...

This is a full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis, enabling any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Peel away the layers of Priestley's complex drama to appreciate his powerful warning, wrapped up in the genre of a gripping detective story, to truly understand that "We don't live alone. We are members of one body."

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”—Los Angeles Times From the beloved, legendary poet...

Bloomsbury presents A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory by Stephen Frosh, read by Sofia Engstrand. Psychoanalytic theory remains hugely influential to our understanding of the mind and human behaviour. It provides a rich source of ideas for therapeutic practice while offering dramatic...

In this groundbreaking work, Sara Ahmed demonstrates how queer studies can put phenomenology to productive use. Focusing on the “orientation” aspect of “sexual orientation” and the “orient” in “orientalism,” Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being “orientated” means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached.

In these 10 entertaining documentaries, he explores why some books, games and binge-watched box sets are, as they say, 'literally unputdownable'; peers into Plotto, an ingenious manual of story devices, to discover whether it really can make writing easy; takes a sideways look at some familiar characters from literature, including James Bond, Dracula, Fu Manchu and Carruthers; delves into the intricacies of the locked-room murder; and revisits his old prep school to find out whether a book of stirring 19th-century verse can work its magic on today’s young people. 

Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination―the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne―a superfan and scholar―radically reimagines the last years of Plath’s life, confronts her suicide and the construction of her legacy.

On his 44th birthday, Eric Newby sets out on an incredible journey: to travel the 1,200-mile length of India's holy river. In a misguided attempt to keep him out of trouble, Wanda, his lifelong travel companion and wife, is to be his fellow boatwoman. Their plan is to begin in the great plain of Hardwar and finish in the Bay of Bengal, but the journey almost immediately becomes markedly slower and more treacherous than either had imagined - running aground 63 times in the first six days.

When tulip-grower Cornelius van Baerle is framed for treason and sentenced to death, he is powerless against the brutal factional politics that put him in prison. But Rosa, the jailer’s daughter, is beautiful and strong-willed, and when they fall in love she determines not only to save him but also to grow the near mythical flower: the black tulip.S et in the savage turmoil of Holland’s late 17th century, this intimate novel celebrates the power of integrity over obsession, and tolerance over violence; and it creates in the black tulip a symbol of humanity’s potential.

Brought to you by Penguin. 1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block. 1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast. 1941. Rosamond...

When rare books dealer Rebecca Romney found an emerald clothbound edition of Evelina by Frances Burney, she was happy to discover that she'd stumbled across a novel by one of Jane Austen's favourite authors. Inspired by the connection between the two writers, she returned to Austen's books with a new lens, picking out clues sprinkled throughout her works that pointed to the writers she had admired.

Writing advice tends to be full of "rules" and "tips" which are either too broad to be helpful or outright wrong. In On Writing and Worldbuilding, we will discuss specific and applicable ideas to consider, from effective methods of delivering exposition and foreshadowing, to how communication, commerce, and control play into the fall of an empire.