Literary essay

In the Company of Rilke: Why a 20th-Century Visionary Poet Speaks So Eloquently to 21st-Century Readers

by Stephanie Dowrick

Connecting to your inner life through the transformative poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

In the Company of Rilke is a rare book about a rare poet. Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of twentieth-century writing who...

Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater

by Garry Wills

"Riveting . . . a double-barreled salvo that hits two bull's-eyes." —The New York Times Book Review

This dazzling study of the three operas that Giuseppe Verdi adapted from Shakespeare's plays takes readers...

A Brief History of Sherlock Holmes

by Nigel Cawthorne

Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, Sherlock Holmes appears in four novels and fifty-six short stories. Although Holmes was not the first literary detective, he continues to have a perennial allure as...

Reading and Rhetoric in Montaigne and Shakespeare

by Peter Mack

Shakespare and Montaigne are the English and French writers of the sixteenth century who have the most to say to modern readers. Shakespeare certainly drew on Montaigne’s essay ’On Cannibals’ in writing The...

Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups

by Susan Osborne

"A book club gives the opportunity to meet up with friends andwake the brain up a bit with lively and often quite aggressivediscussion" Dawn French

How do you keep your reading groups discussions lively andfocussed?...

File On Nichols: Peter Nichols

by Peter Nichols

We are not short of good playwrights in Britain, but I know of none with Nichols’ power to put modern Britain on the stage and send the spectators away feeling more like members of the human race (Irving Wardle,...

Shakespeare: Upstart Crow to Sweet Swan: 1592-1623

by Katherine Duncan-Jones

An original and provocative study of the evolution of Shakespeare’s image, building on the success of Duncan-Jones’ acclaimed biography of Shakespeare. Taking a broadly chronological approach, she investigates...

100 Must-read Historical Novels

by Nick Rennison

Historical fiction is a hugely popular genre of fiction providing fictional accounts or dramatizations of historical figures or events.

This latest guide in the highly successful Bloomsbury Must-Reads series...

100 Must-Read American Novels: Discover your next great read...

by Nick Rennison & Ed Wood

Which 100 novels represent the finest American literature ever produced? Let this book be your guide. Ordered A-Z by author this latest title in the popular Must-Read series provides a rich resource for your...

Why Read Moby-Dick?

by Nathaniel Philbrick

The New York Times bestselling author of seagoing epics now celebrates an American classic.

Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an...

Writing for Your Life: Discovering the Story of Your Life's Jou

by Deena Metzger

In the tradition of Annie Dillard and Natalie Goldberg, this resource for writers and non-writers alike shows the act of writing to be a dynamic means of knowing, healing, and creating the body, mind, and spirit....

Uncensored: Views & (Re)views

by Joyce Carol Oates

Uncensored: Views & (Re)views is Joyce Carol Oates's most candid gathering of prose pieces since (Woman) Writer: Occasions & Opportunities. Her ninth book of nonfiction, it brings together thirty-eight diverse...

Speak What We Feel

by Frederick Buechner

Four Unexpected Prophets Who Shine Light into the Darkness

How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken

by Daniel Mendelsohn

Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition,...

How to Read Novels Like a Professor

by Thomas C. Foster

Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's...

Shakespeare's Philosophy

by Colin Mcginn

Shakespeare's plays are usually studied by literary scholars and historians and the books about him from those perspectives are legion. It is most unusual for a trained philosopher to give us his insight, as...

Septuagenarian Stew

by Charles Bukowski

Septuagenarian Stew is a combination of poetry and stories written by Charles Bukowski that delve into the lives of different people on the backstreets of Los Angeles. He writes of the housewife, the bum, the...

Caballero noble desbaratado

by José Luis Gastañaga Ponce de León

First-person narrative does not always fall under the genre of autobiography. In the centuries before the genre was defined, authors often patterned their personal narratives after prestigious discourses, such...

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

by Pierre Bayard

In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it....

The Mother-Daughter Book Club Rev Ed.: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh, and Learn Through Their Love of Reading

by Shireen Dodson

Newly revised and updated! The tenth anniversary edition of the inspirational book that has brought countless mothers and daughters closer together!

The Mother-Daughter Book Club is the story of a group of mothers...