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ABC of Reading
by Ezra Pound

ISBN 0811201511 (0-8112-0151-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Ezra Pounds classic book about the meaning of literature.
This important work, first published in 1934, is a concise statement of Pounds aesthetic theory. It is a primer for the reader who wants to maintain an active, critical mind and become increasingly sensitive to the beauty and inspiration of the worlds best literature. With characteristic vigor and iconoclasm, Pound illustrates his precepts with exhibits meticulously chosen from the classics, and the concluding Treatise on Meter provides an illuminating essay for anyone aspiring to read and write poetry. ABC of Reading displays Pounds great ability to open new avenues in literature for our time. [via]
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- ABC of Reading: ISBN 0811201511 (0-8112-0151-1)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Against Interpretation: And Other Essays
by Susan Sontag

ISBN 0312280866 (0-312-28086-6)
Softcover, Picador USA

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Book summary:
The first collection of essays by the brilliant critic and writer to be published in book form, containing her best writings between 1961 and 1965. [via]
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Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
by Northrop Frye

ISBN 0691069999 (0-691-06999-9)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
Northrop Frye was one of the most influential 20th-century literary scholars, and Anatomy of Criticism is his most influential book. In this rigorous and readable work of scholarship, Frye feistily champions literary criticism's legitimacy and independence--both by differentiating criticism from other academic disciplines, and by banishing any conception of the critic as "parasite or jackal" (this latter view, Frye notes, is still quite popular, "especially among artists"). The book began as something quite different, and took nearly a decade to write. Frye published his first major work--Fearful Symmetry, on the Romantic poet William Blake--in 1947 and had set out to produce a second tome on Edmund Spencer. But the critical insights accumulating in his fertile mind were too insistent, so the book on Spencer became Anatomy of Criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism remains provocative and enlightening in no small part because of its ambitious breadth. Frye's comprehension of literary history is breathtaking, as is the complexity but also the clarity of his thought. Four chapters treat historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhetorical modes of criticism, bracketed by a "Polemical Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." Frye's ultimate aim is to confirm for the reader that literary criticism is a science in its own right: "Criticism," he says, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy is to wisdom.... And just as there is nothing which the philosopher cannot consider philosophically, and nothing which the historian cannot consider historically, so the critic should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own." Rather than promote any particular critical approach over another, he tries to construct a theoretical structure sturdy and expansive enough to accommodate and inter-relate a broad range of critical approaches. --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays:
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0691012989 (0-691-01298-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0691069999 (0-691-06999-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
by William Calin

ISBN 0802092721 (0-8020-9272-1)
Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr

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Book summary:
Northrop Frye was one of the most influential 20th-century literary scholars, and Anatomy of Criticism is his most influential book. In this rigorous and readable work of scholarship, Frye feistily champions literary criticism's legitimacy and independence--both by differentiating criticism from other academic disciplines, and by banishing any conception of the critic as "parasite or jackal" (this latter view, Frye notes, is still quite popular, "especially among artists"). The book began as something quite different, and took nearly a decade to write. Frye published his first major work--Fearful Symmetry, on the Romantic poet William Blake--in 1947 and had set out to produce a second tome on Edmund Spencer. But the critical insights accumulating in his fertile mind were too insistent, so the book on Spencer became Anatomy of Criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism remains provocative and enlightening in no small part because of its ambitious breadth. Frye's comprehension of literary history is breathtaking, as is the complexity but also the clarity of his thought. Four chapters treat historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhetorical modes of criticism, bracketed by a "Polemical Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." Frye's ultimate aim is to confirm for the reader that literary criticism is a science in its own right: "Criticism," he says, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy is to wisdom.... And just as there is nothing which the philosopher cannot consider philosophically, and nothing which the historian cannot consider historically, so the critic should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own." Rather than promote any particular critical approach over another, he tries to construct a theoretical structure sturdy and expansive enough to accommodate and inter-relate a broad range of critical approaches. --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays:
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0802092721 (0-8020-9272-1)
  Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr
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Aristotle on Poetics
by Aristotle, Michael Davis, Seth Benardete

ISBN 1587310260 (1-58731-026-0)
Softcover, St Augustine Pr Inc

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Book summary:
Aristotle's much-translated On Poetics is the earliest and arguably the best treatment that we possess of tragedy as a literary form. The late Seth Benardete and Michael Davis have translated it anew with a view to rendering Aristotle's text into English as precisely as possible. A literal translation has long been needed, for in order to excavate the argument of On Poetics one has to attend not simply to what is said on the surface but also to the various puzzles, questions, and peculiarities that emerge only on the level of how Aristotle says what he says and thereby leads one to revise and deepen one's initial understanding of the intent of the argument. As On Poetics is about how tragedy ought to be composed, it should not be surprising that it turns out to be a rather artful piece of literature in its own right.
Benardete and Davis supplement their edition of On Poetics with extensive notes and appendices. They explain nuances of the original that elude translation, and they provide translations of passages found elsewhere in Aristotle's works as well as in those of other ancient authors that prove useful in thinking through the argument of On Poetics both in terms of its treatment of tragedy and in terms of its broader concerns. By following the connections Aristotle plots between On Poetics and his other works, readers will be in a position to appreciate the centrality of this work for his entire thought.
In an introduction that sketches the overall interpretation of On Poetics presented in hisThe Poetry of Philosophy (St. Augustine's Press, 1999; see p. 33 of this catalogue), Davis argues that, while On Poetics is certainly about tragedy, it has a further concern extending beyond poetry to the very structure of the human soul in its relation to what is, and that Aristotle reveals in the form of his argument the true character of human action. [via]
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- Aristotle on Poetics: ISBN 1587310252 (1-58731-025-2)
  Hardcover, St Augustine Pr Inc
- Aristotle on Poetics: ISBN 1587310260 (1-58731-026-0)
  Softcover, St Augustine Pr Inc
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Aristotle Poetics
by S.H. Butcher

ISBN 0486200426 (0-486-20042-6)
Softcover, Dover Pubns

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Book summary:
Best translation of one of the most influential books in all history. Greek and English on facing pages, plus Butcher's famed 300-page exposition and interpretation of Aristotle's ideas. Seminal discussions of art and morality, poetic truth, much more.
[via]
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- Aristotle Poetics: ISBN 0486200426 (0-486-20042-6)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
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Aristotle Poetics/Longinus on the Sublime/Demetrius on Style
by Aristotle, Donald Russell, Demetrius, Longinus, Stephen Halliwell, Dorren C. Innes, W. H. Fyfe

ISBN 0674995635 (0-674-99563-5)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr

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Book summary:
This volume brings together the three most influential ancient Greek treatises on literature. Aristotle's Poetics contains his treatment of Greek tragedy: its history, naturne, and conventions, with details on poetic diction. Stephen Halliwell makes this seminal work newly accessible with a reliable text and a translation that is both accurate and readable. His authoritative introduction traces the work's debt to earlier theorists (especially Plato), its distinctive argument, and the reasons behind its enduring relevance.
The essay On the Sublime, usually attributed to "Longinus" (identity uncertain), was probably composed in the first century CE; its subject is the appreciation of greatness ("the sublime") in writing, with analysis of illustrative passages ranging from Homer and Sappho to Plato. In this edition, Donald Russell has revised and newly annotated the text and translation by W. Hamilton Fyfe, and supplied a new introduction.
The treatise On Style, ascribed to an (again unidentifiable) Demetrius, was perhaps composed during the secod century BCE. It is notable particularly for its theory and analysis of four distinct styles (grand, elegant, plain, and forceful). Doreen Innes' fresh rendering of the work is based on the earlier Loeb translation by W. Rhys Roberts. Her new introduction and notes represent the latest scholarship.
[via]
More editions of Aristotle Poetics/Longinus on the Sublime/Demetrius on Style:
- Aristotle Poetics/Longinus on the Sublime/Demetrius on Style: ISBN 0674995635 (0-674-99563-5)
  Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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Aristotle's Poetics
by Aristotle, James Hutton

ISBN 0393952169 (0-393-95216-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
A work of transcendent importance, both for the history of literary criticism and in its own right
[via]
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Aristotle's Poetics
by Hippocrates G. Apostle, Morris A. Parslow, Elizabeth A. Dobbs

ISBN 0911589090 (0-911589-09-0)
Softcover, Peripatetic Pr

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- Aristotle's Poetics: ISBN 0911589090 (0-911589-09-0)
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Aspects of the Novel
by E. M. Forster

ISBN 0156091801 (0-15-609180-1)
Softcover, Harcourt

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Book summary:
There are all kinds of books out there purporting to explain that odd phenomenon the novel. Sometimes it's hard to know whom they're are for, exactly. Enthusiastic readers? Fellow academics? Would-be writers? Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster's 1927 treatise on the "fictitious prose work over 50,000 words" is, it turns out, for anyone with the faintest interest in how fiction is made. Open at random, and find your attention utterly sandbagged.
Forster's book is not really a book at all; rather, it's a collection of lectures delivered at Cambridge University on subjects as parboiled as "People," "The Plot," and "The Story." It has an unpretentious verbal immediacy thanks to its spoken origin and is written in the key of Aplogetic Mumble: "Those who dislike Dickens have an excellent case. He ought to be bad." Such gentle provocations litter these pages. How can you not read on? Forster's critical writing is so ridiculously plainspoken, so happily commonsensical, that we often forget to be intimidated by the rhetorical landscapes he so ably leads us through. As he himself points out in the introductory note, "Since the novel is itself often colloquial it may possibly withhold some of its secrets from the graver and grander streams of criticism, and may reveal them to backwaters and shallows."
And Forster does paddle into some unlikely eddies here. For instance, he seems none too gung ho about love in the novel: "And lastly, love. I am using this celebrated word in its widest and dullest sense. Let me be very dry and brief about sex in the first place." He really means in the first place. Like the narrator of a '50s hygiene film, Forster continues, dry and brief as anything, "Some years after a human being is born, certain changes occur in it..." One feels here the same-sexer having the last laugh, heartily.
Forster's brand of humanism has fallen from fashion in literary studies, yet it endures in fiction itself. Readers still love this author, even if they come to him by way of the multiplex. The durability of his work is, of course, the greatest raison d'être this book could have. It should have been titled How to Write Novels People Will Still Read in a Hundred Years. --Claire Dederer [via]
More editions of Aspects of the Novel:
- Aspects of the Novel: ISBN 0156091801 (0-15-609180-1)
  Softcover, Harcourt
Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings
by E. M. Forster

ISBN 0713157690 (0-7131-5769-0)
Hardcover, Edward Arnold

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- Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings: ISBN 0713157690 (0-7131-5769-0)
  Hardcover, Edward Arnold
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
by C. S. Lewis

ISBN 0521477352 (0-521-47735-2)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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Book summary:
C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the "image" discarded by later ages as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe." This, Lewis' last book, was hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind." [via]
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Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0446691291 (0-446-69129-1)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
From the Bible to Ralph Ellison, America's most prominent and bestselling literary critic takes an enlightening look at the concept of genius through the ages in a celebration of the greatest creative writers of all time. 50 photos. [via]
More editions of Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds:
- Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds: ISBN 0446527173 (0-446-52717-3)
  Hardcover, Grand Central Publishing
- Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds: ISBN 0446691291 (0-446-69129-1)
  Softcover, Grand Central Pub
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How to Read and Why
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0684859076 (0-684-85907-6)
Softcover, Scribner

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Book summary:
Harold Bloom's urgency in How to Read and Why may have much to do with his age. He brackets his combative, inspiring manual with the news that he is nearing 70 and hasn't time for the mediocre. (One doubts that he ever did.) Nor will he countenance such fashionable notions as the death of the author or abide "the vagaries of our current counter-Puritanism" let alone "ideological cheerleading." Successively exploring the short story, poetry, the novel, and drama, Bloom illuminates both the how and why of his title and points us in all the right directions: toward the Romantics because they "startle us out of our sleep-of-death into a more capacious sense of life"; toward Austen, James, Proust; toward Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy; toward Cervantes and Shakespeare (but of course!), Ibsen and Oscar Wilde.
How should we read? Slowly, with love, openness, and with our inner ear cocked. Then we should reread, reread, reread, and do so aloud as often as possible. "As a boy of eight," he tells us, "I would walk about chanting Housman's and William Blake's lyrics to myself, and I still do, less frequently yet with undiminished fervor." And why should we engage in this apparently solitary activity? To increase our wit and imagination, our sense of intimacy--in short, our entire consciousness--and also to heal our pain. "Until you become yourself," Bloom avers, "what benefit can you be to others." So much for reading as an escape from the self!
Still, many of this volume's pleasures may indeed be selfish. The author is at his best when he is thinking aloud and anew, and his material offers him--and therefore us--endless opportunities for discovery. Bloom cherishes poetry because it is "a prophetic mode" and fiction for its wisdom. Intriguingly, he fears more for the fate of the latter: "Novels require more readers than poems do, a statement so odd that it puzzles me, even as I agree with it." We must, he adjures, crusade against its possible extinction and read novels "in the coming years of the third millennium, as they were read in the eighteenth and nineteenth century: for aesthetic pleasure and for spiritual insight."
Bloom is never heavy, since his vision quest contains a healthy love of irony--Jedediah Purdy, take note: "Strip irony away from reading, and it loses at once all discipline and all surprise." And this supreme critic makes us want to equal his reading prowess because he writes as well as he reads; his epigrams are equal to his opinions. He is also a master allusionist and quoter. His section on Hedda Gabler is preceded by three extraordinary statements, two from Ibsen, who insists, "There must be a troll in what I write." Who would not want to proceed? Of course, Bloom can also accomplish his goal by sheer obstinacy. As far as he is concerned, Don Quixote may have been the first novel but it remains to this day the best one. Is he perhaps tweaking us into reading this gigantic masterwork by such bald overstatement? Bloom knows full well that a prophet should stop at nothing to get his belief and love across, and throughout How to Read and Why he is as unstinting as the visionary company he adores. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Illuminations
by Walter Benjamin

ISBN 0805202412 (0-8052-0241-2)
Softcover, Schocken Books

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Book summary:
Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century. Illuminations includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history.

Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin's life in dark times. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. [via]
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- Illuminations: ISBN 0805202412 (0-8052-0241-2)
  Softcover, Schocken Books
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James Joyce's Ulysses
by James Joyce

ISBN 1555460216 (1-55546-021-6)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
Critical essays published during the last twenty-five years on Joyce's celebrated novel "Ulysses." [via]
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- James Joyce's Ulysses: ISBN 1555460216 (1-55546-021-6)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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James Joyce's Ulysses
by S. Gilbert

ISBN 0394700139 (0-394-70013-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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With the passing of each year, Ulysses receives wider recognition and greater acclaim as a modern literary classic. To comprehend Joyce's masterpiece fully, to gain insight into its significance and structure, the serious reader will find this analytical and systematic guide invaluable. In this exegesis, written under Joyce's supervision, Stuart Gilbert presents a work that is at once scholarly, authoritative and stimulating. [via]
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- James Joyce's Ulysses: ISBN 0394700139 (0-394-70013-9)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages
by Erich Auerbach, Ralph Manheim

ISBN 0691024685 (0-691-02468-5)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
In this, his final book, Erich Auerbach writes, "My purpose is always to write history." Tracing the transformations of classical Latin rhetoric from late antiquity to the modern era, he explores major concerns raised in his Mimesis: the historical and social contexts in which writings were received, and issues of aesthetics, semantics, stylistics, and sociology that anticipate the concerns of the new historicism.
[via]
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- Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages: ISBN 0691024685 (0-691-02468-5)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

ISBN 081661251X (0-8166-1251-X)
Softcover, Univ of Minnesota Pr

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Book summary:
A concise, witty, and entertaining introduction to the seemingly impenetrable world of modern literary [via]
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The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
by Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar

ISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr

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This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual". [via]
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- The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
  Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
by Erich Auerbach

ISBN 069111336X (0-691-11336-X)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics. [via]
More editions of Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature:
- Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature: ISBN 0691012695 (0-691-01269-5)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
- Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature: ISBN 069111336X (0-691-11336-X)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Mythologies
by R. Barthes

ISBN 0374521506 (0-374-52150-6)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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L'Antiquité avait son Oedipe, le Grand Siècle son roi Soleil, et voilà que Barthes donne à la France de l'après-guerre ses nouveaux emblèmes : la DS Citroën, le Tour de France, le steak frites... Tous objets d'un culte bourgeois, ils deviennent de véritables mythes pour une société qui finit par se penser à travers eux. Mais si Barthes se penche avec la rigueur de l'ethnologue sur ces nouveaux mythes, c'est pour mieux en dénoncer les mécanismes : l'idéologie dominante ne s'inventerait ainsi des valeurs que pour légitimer des "normes bourgeoises" qui en manquent singulièrement...
Écrites quotidiennement de 1954 à 1956, ces mythologies déploient une écriture fine, cultivée et juste, à lire comme autant de petites chroniques savoureuses. Toutefois, on les retiendra avant tout pour l'actualité de leurs propos : sur le même modèle, on trouverait sans peine de nouvelles mythologies, qui ne seraient sans doute pas très éloignées de celles que Barthes, en son temps, mettait en évidence. --Karla Manuele [via]
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Mythologies
by Yves Bonnefoy, Wendy Doniger, Gerald Honigsblum

ISBN 0226064530 (0-226-06453-0)
Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

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"The appearance of this monumental work in a beautifully produced and richly illustrated English edition is a publishing event of considerable significance."Mark C. Taylor, New York Times Book Review

"The almost 100 contributors combine, with characteristic precision and elan, the arts of science and poetry, of analysis and translation. The result is a treasury of information, brilliant guesswork, witty asides, and revealing digressions. This is a work of genuine and enduring excitement."Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor
[via]
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- Mythologies: ISBN 0226064530 (0-226-06453-0)
  Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Nobody's Perfect: Writings from the New Yorker
by Anthony Lane

ISBN 0375714340 (0-375-71434-0)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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In an aside that reads like a declaration of intent, Anthony Lane writes that he never quite thrilled to the battle pitched between mainstream and art cinemawhich is to say that he glories in highbrow and lowbrow alike, and respectfully suggests that the ideal literary diet consists of trash and classics . . . books you can read without thinking, and books you have to read if you want to think at all.

In almost ten years as a critic for The New Yorker, Lane has not only written an indispensable column on the latest movie releases, great and small. He has also turned his gaze upon subjects as various as Evelyn Waugh, Shakespeare, the glory of cookbooks, and the fine art of the obituary. Whether he is examining Alfred Hitchcock or astronauts, to read him is to be carried along on a current of urgent inquiry (What is the point of Demi Moore?), wry reflection, and penetrating wit. An essay on The Sound of Music leads him to consider not only singing nuns but the comedy of our cultural memories (For all our searchings and suppressings, the past comes unbidden or not at all); his now infamous pieces on the best-seller lists both celebrate the exultantly bad prose of Judith Krantz and deride the marshes of the middlebrow, where serious novelists lumber around with too many ideas on their back. His writings on the poetry of Matthew Arnold, A. E. Housman, and especially T. S. Eliot showcase his erudition, dispensed with a piercing insight into human folly. In his survey of events as disparate as Oscar night, a Walker Evans retrospective, and the craziness of a Chanel show in Paris, the acuity of Lanes intellect is matched by a quality of heart that is his alone, and by a willingness to be carried away. His writings remind us of what criticism can achieve at its best.

Arguably the most gifted reviewer at work today, Anthony Lane sets the standardas a reader, as a critic, and as an observer of life. Nobody's Perfect is a must for fans old and new. [via]
More editions of Nobody's Perfect: Writings from the New Yorker:
- Nobody's Perfect : Writings from the New Yorker: ISBN 0375414487 (0-375-41448-7)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- Nobody's Perfect: Writings from the New Yorker: ISBN 0375714340 (0-375-71434-0)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
by Vincent B. Leitch

ISBN 0393974294 (0-393-97429-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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NA [via]
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- The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism: ISBN 0393974294 (0-393-97429-4)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Nothing If Not Critical
by Robert Hughes

ISBN 1860466524 (1-86046-652-4)
Softcover, Harvill Pr

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A selection of essays on art and artists, this text presents the authors arguments for the real values of art and outlines the way ahead for artist in the 1990s. He tackles the lives and works of over 80 artists, from Old Masters to his contemporaries, exploring their achievements (or lack of it). [via]
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- Nothing If Not Critical: ISBN 1860466524 (1-86046-652-4)
  Softcover, Harvill Pr
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Nothing If Not Critical : Selected Essays on Art and Artists
by Robert Hughes

ISBN 0394580265 (0-394-58026-5)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
A selection of essays on art and artists, this text presents the authors arguments for the real values of art and outlines the way ahead for artist in the 1990s. He tackles the lives and works of over 80 artists, from Old Masters to his contemporaries, exploring their achievements (or lack of it). [via]
More editions of Nothing If Not Critical : Selected Essays on Art and Artists:
- Nothing If Not Critical : Selected Essays on Art and Artists: ISBN 0394580265 (0-394-58026-5)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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On Poetry and Style
by Aristotle

ISBN 0872200728 (0-87220-072-8)
Softcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
Contains the 'Poetics' and the first twelve chapters of the 'Rhetoric, Book III'. [via]
More editions of On Poetry and Style:
- On Poetry and Style: ISBN 0872200736 (0-87220-073-6)
  Hardcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc
- On Poetry and Style: ISBN 0872200728 (0-87220-072-8)
  Softcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc
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Orientalism
by Edward W. Said

ISBN 039474067X (0-394-74067-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
For generations now, Edward W. Said's "Orientalism" has defined our understanding of colonialism and empire, and this "Penguin Modern Classics" edition contains a preface written by Said shortly before his death in 2003. In this highly-acclaimed work, Edward Said surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, considering orientalism as a powerful European ideological creation - a way for writers, philosophers and colonial administrators to deal with the 'otherness' of eastern culture, customs and beliefs. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Nerval and Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West's romantic and exotic picture of the Orient. Drawing on his own experiences as an Arab Palestinian living in the West, Said examines how these ideas can be a reflection of European imperialism and racism. Edward W. Said (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American cultural critic and author, born in Jerusalem and educated in Egypt and the United States. His other books include "The Question of Palestine", "Culture and Imperialism" and "Out of Place: A Memoir". If you enjoyed "Orientalism", you might like Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth", also available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Stimulating, elegant and pugnacious". ("Observer"). "Beautifully patterned and passionately argued". ("New Statesman"). "Very exciting ...his case is not merely persuasive, but conclusive". (John Leonard, "New York Times"). "Magisterial". (Terry Eagleton). [via]
More editions of Orientalism:
- Orientalism: ISBN 0394428145 (0-394-42814-5)
  Hardcover, Pantheon Books
- Orientalism: ISBN 039474067X (0-394-74067-X)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Poetics
by Aristotle

ISBN 1419142402 (1-4191-4240-2)
Softcover, Kessinger Pub Co

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Book summary:
The original, Aristotle's short study of storytelling, written in the fourth century B.C., is the world's first critical book about the laws of literature. Sure, it's 2400 years old, but Aristotle's discussions--Unity of Plot, Reversal of the Situation, Character--though written in the context of ancient Greek Tragedy, Comedy and Epic Poetry, still apply to our modern literary forms. The book is quite short, and Aristotle illuminates his points with clear examples, making the Poetics perfectly readable, the better to impress people at parties when you say, "Of course, as Aristotle says..." [via]
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Poetics I
by Aristotle, Richard Janko

ISBN 0872200337 (0-87220-033-7)
Softcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's "Poetics" is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the "Tractatus Coislinianus", which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the "Poetics", and fragments of Aristotle's "Dialogue On Poets", including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time. [via]
More editions of Poetics I:
- Poetics I: ISBN 0872200337 (0-87220-033-7)
  Softcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc
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Poetics I With the Tractatus Coislinianus: A Hypothetical Reconstruction of Poetics II
by Aristotle

ISBN 0872200345 (0-87220-034-5)
Hardcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's "Poetics" is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the "Tractatus Coislinianus", which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the "Poetics", and fragments of Aristotle's "Dialogue On Poets", including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time. [via]
More editions of Poetics I With the Tractatus Coislinianus: A Hypothetical Reconstruction of Poetics II:
- Poetics I With the Tractatus Coislinianus: A Hypothetical Reconstruction of Poetics II: ISBN 0872200345 (0-87220-034-5)
  Hardcover, Hackett Pub Co Inc
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The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary
by Stephen Halliwell

ISBN 0807842036 (0-8078-4203-6)
Softcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr

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Book summary:
Incorporating the best modern work on the Poetics, Halliwell's translation is aimed at those who want a reliable version of Aristotle's ideas along with concise and stimulating guidance. A running commentary explains the structure and detail of Aristotle's argument, attempts to provoke further thought about the work's strengths and weaknesses, and offers suggestions on relating the Poetics to later stages of literary theory and practice. [via]
More editions of The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary:
- The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary: ISBN 0807817635 (0-8078-1763-5)
  Hardcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr
- The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary: ISBN 0807842036 (0-8078-4203-6)
  Softcover, Univ of North Carolina Pr
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The Poetics of Aristotle
by Aristotle, Samuel Henry Butcher

ISBN 140651022X (1-4065-1022-X)
Softcover, Dodo Pr

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Book summary:
Classic work from the Ancient Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, who laid down the foundations of Western philosophy. [via]
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- The Poetics of Aristotle: ISBN 140651022X (1-4065-1022-X)
  Softcover, Dodo Pr
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The Polysyllabic Spree
by Nick Hornby

ISBN 1932416242 (1-932416-24-2)
Softcover, McSweeneys Books

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Book summary:
In his monthly column "Stuff I've Been Reading," Hornby lists the books he's purchased that month, and briefly discusses the books he's actually read.

NIck Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree Includes selected passages from the novels, biographies, collections of poetry, and comics discussed in the column.

[via]
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- The Polysyllabic Spree: ISBN 1932416242 (1-932416-24-2)
  Softcover, McSweeneys Books
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Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
by Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus

ISBN 0679720456 (0-679-72045-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs--the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s--edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rack critics, Greil Marcus. Advertising in Rolling Stone and other major publications. [via]
More editions of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung:
- Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: ISBN 0679720456 (0-679-72045-6)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung : An Anthology
by Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus

ISBN 039453896X (0-394-53896-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs--the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s--edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rack critics, Greil Marcus. Advertising in Rolling Stone and other major publications. [via]
More editions of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung : An Anthology:
- Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung : An Anthology: ISBN 039453896X (0-394-53896-X)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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The Rhetoric of Fiction
by Wayne C. Booth

ISBN 0226065588 (0-226-06558-8)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

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Book summary:
The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and termssuch as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"have become part of the standard critical lexicon.

For this new edition, Wayne C. Booth has written an extensive Afterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects what he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking about the rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary Bibliography, prepared by James Phelan in consultation with the author, which lists the important critical works of the past twenty yearstwo decades that Booth describes as "the richest in the history of the subject."
[via]
More editions of The Rhetoric of Fiction:
- The Rhetoric of Fiction: ISBN 0226065561 (0-226-06556-1)
  Hardcover, University of Chicago Press
- The Rhetoric of Fiction: ISBN 0226065588 (0-226-06558-8)
  Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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A Rhetoric of Irony
by Wayne C. Booth

ISBN 0226065537 (0-226-06553-7)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

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Book summary:
Perhaps no other critical label has been made to cover more ground than "irony," and in our time irony has come to have so many meanings that by itself it means almost nothing. In this work, Wayne C. Booth cuts through the resulting confusions by analyzing how we manage to share quite specific ironiesand why we often fail when we try to do so. How does a reader or listener recognize the kind of statement which requires him to reject its "clear" and "obvious" meaning? And how does any reader know where to stop, once he has embarked on the hazardous and exhilarating path of rejecting "what the words say" and reconstructing "what the author means"?

In the first and longer part of his work, Booth deals with the workings of what he calls "stable irony," irony with a clear rhetorical intent. He then turns to intended instabilitiesironies that resist interpretation and finally lead to the "infinite absolute negativities" that have obsessed criticism since the Romantic period.

Professor Booth is always ironically aware that no one can fathom the unfathomable. But by looking closely at unstable ironists like Samuel Becket, he shows that at least some of our commonplaces about meaninglessness require revision. Finally, he exploreswith the help of Platothe wry paradoxes that threaten any uncompromising assertion that all assertion can be undermined by the spirit of irony.
[via]
More editions of A Rhetoric of Irony:
- A Rhetoric of Irony: ISBN 0226065529 (0-226-06552-9)
  Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
- A Rhetoric of Irony: ISBN 0226065537 (0-226-06553-7)
  Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus

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- A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas: ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
  Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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Room of Ones' Own
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 1568493665 (1-56849-366-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexism is one of Woolf's most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--and completely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, all the while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education in the England of her day. When she concluded that to achieve their full greatness as writers women will need a solid income and a privacy, Woolf pretty much invented modern feminist criticism. [via]
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The Sandman Companion
by Hy Bender

ISBN 1563896443 (1-56389-644-3)
Softcover, Dc Comics

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Book summary:
The Sandman was a groundbreaking and award-winning series that told the dark and tragic tale of Morpheus, the King of Dreams. A fascinating mythology of horror and consequence, this epic masterfully combined intriguing literature with captivating art. THE SANDMAN COMPANION is an exhaustive guide to this legend. Revealing hitherto undisclosed information and behind-the-scenes secrets, this book features in-depth interviews, never-before-seen illustrations, character origins, and story explanations and analysis. Also including excerpts from the original proposal for the series, this handbook is the perfect complement to the Sandman graphic novels. [via]
More editions of The Sandman Companion:
- The Sandman Companion: ISBN 1563896443 (1-56389-644-3)
  Softcover, Dc Comics
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The Sandman Companion
by Neil Gaiman, Hy Bender

ISBN 1563894653 (1-56389-465-3)
Hardcover, Dc Comics

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- The Sandman Companion: ISBN 1563894653 (1-56389-465-3)
  Hardcover, Dc Comics
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Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
by Camille Paglia

ISBN 0300091273 (0-300-09127-3)
Softcover, Yale University Press

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Book summary:
Vintage 1990 soft cover, perfect condition and ready to ship the same day! [via]
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Shakespeare: Invention
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 1573221201 (1-57322-120-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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Book summary:
"Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness." So Harold Bloom opines in his outrageously ambitious Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. This is a titanic claim. But then this is a titanic book, wrought by a latter-day critical colossus--and before Bloom is done with us, he has made us wonder whether his vision of Shakespeare's influence on the whole of our lives might not be simply the sober truth. Shakespeare is a feast of arguments and insights, written with engaging frankness and affecting immediacy. Bloom ranges through the Bard's plays in the probable order of their composition, relating play to play and character to character, maintaining all the while a shrewd grasp of Shakespeare's own burgeoning sensibility.
It is a long and fascinating itinerary, and one littered with thousands of sharp insights. Listen to Bloom on Romeo and Juliet: "The Nurse and Mercutio, both of them audience favorites, are nevertheless bad news, in different but complementary ways." On The Merchant of Venice: "To reduce him to contemporary theatrical terms, Shylock would be an Arthur Miller protagonist displaced into a Cole Porter musical, Willy Loman wandering about in Kiss Me Kate." On As You Like It: "Rosalind is unique in Shakespeare, perhaps indeed in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share." Bloom even offers some belated vocational counseling to Falstaff, identifying him as an Elizabethan Mr. Chips: "Falstaff is more than skeptical, but he is too much of a teacher (his true vocation, more than highwayman) to follow skepticism out to its nihilistic borders, as Hamlet does."
In the end, it doesn't matter very much whether we agree with all or any of these ideas. What does matter is that Bloom's capacious book sends us hurrying back to some of the central texts of our civilization. "The ultimate use of Shakespeare," the author asserts, "is to let him teach you to think too well, to whatever truth you can sustain without perishing." Bloom himself has made excellent use of his hero's instruction, and now he teaches us all to do the same. --Daniel Hintzsche [via]
More editions of Shakespeare: Invention:
- Shakespeare: Invention: ISBN 1573221201 (1-57322-120-1)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 157322751X (1-57322-751-X)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

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Book summary:
"Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness." So Harold Bloom opines in his outrageously ambitious Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. This is a titanic claim. But then this is a titanic book, wrought by a latter-day critical colossus--and before Bloom is done with us, he has made us wonder whether his vision of Shakespeare's influence on the whole of our lives might not be simply the sober truth. Shakespeare is a feast of arguments and insights, written with engaging frankness and affecting immediacy. Bloom ranges through the Bard's plays in the probable order of their composition, relating play to play and character to character, maintaining all the while a shrewd grasp of Shakespeare's own burgeoning sensibility.
It is a long and fascinating itinerary, and one littered with thousands of sharp insights. Listen to Bloom on Romeo and Juliet: "The Nurse and Mercutio, both of them audience favorites, are nevertheless bad news, in different but complementary ways." On The Merchant of Venice: "To reduce him to contemporary theatrical terms, Shylock would be an Arthur Miller protagonist displaced into a Cole Porter musical, Willy Loman wandering about in Kiss Me Kate." On As You Like It: "Rosalind is unique in Shakespeare, perhaps indeed in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share." Bloom even offers some belated vocational counseling to Falstaff, identifying him as an Elizabethan Mr. Chips: "Falstaff is more than skeptical, but he is too much of a teacher (his true vocation, more than highwayman) to follow skepticism out to its nihilistic borders, as Hamlet does."
In the end, it doesn't matter very much whether we agree with all or any of these ideas. What does matter is that Bloom's capacious book sends us hurrying back to some of the central texts of our civilization. "The ultimate use of Shakespeare," the author asserts, "is to let him teach you to think too well, to whatever truth you can sustain without perishing." Bloom himself has made excellent use of his hero's instruction, and now he teaches us all to do the same. --Daniel Hintzsche [via]
More editions of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human:
- Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human: ISBN 157322751X (1-57322-751-X)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
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The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
by Martin Amis

ISBN 0375727167 (0-375-72716-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
In Martin Amis's War Against Cliché, a selection of critical essays and reviews published between 1971 and 2000, he establishes himself as one of the fiercest critics and commentators on the literature and culture of the late 20th century. (He has already established himself as one of the most controversial and original novelists writing in English with novels such as Money and Time's Arrow.) In his foreword to the book Amis ruefully admits that his earlier reviews reveal a rather humorless attitude towards the "Literature and Society" debate of the time. Yet this only adds to the fascination of the collection, as Amis gradually finds his critical voice in the 1980s, confirming his passionate belief that "all writing is a campaign against cliché."
In the subsequent sections of the book, this war leads to some wonderfully cutting and amusing responses to whatever crosses his path, from books on chess and nuclear proliferation to Cervantes' Don Quixote and the novels of his hero Vladimir Nabokov. Praise for his literary heroes is often fulsome: J.G. Ballard's High-Rise "is an intense and vivid bestiary, which lingers in the mind and chronically disquiets it." But his literary wrath is also devastating in its incisiveness: Thomas Harris's Hannibal is dismissed as "a novel of such profound and virtuoso vulgarity," while John Fowles is attacked because "he sweetens the pill: but the pill was saccharine all along." Often frank in its reappraisals (Amis concedes to being too hard on Ballard's Crash when reviewing the film many years later), some of the best writing is reserved for his journalism on sex manuals, chess, and his beloved football. The War Against Cliché will provoke strong reactions, but that only seems to confirm, rather than deny, the value of Amis's writing. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Ways of Seeing
by John Berger

ISBN 0140135154 (0-14-013515-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
John Bergers Classic Text on Art

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

"Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" Peter Fuller, Arts Review

"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling

Winner of the 1972 Booker Prize for his novel, G., John Peter Berger (born November 5th, 1926) is an art critic, painter and author of many novels including A Painter of Our Time, From A to X and Bentos Sketchbook.
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The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 1573225142 (1-57322-514-2)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

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Book summary:
Discussed and debated, revered and reviled, Bloom's tome reinvigorates and re-examines Western Literature, arguing against the politicization of reading. His erudite passion will encourage you to hurry and finish his book so you can pick up Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens once again to rediscover their original magic. In addition, his appendix listing of the "future" canon - the books today that will be timeless tomorrow - is sure to be the template for future debate. [via]
More editions of The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages:
- The Western Canon : The Books and School of the Ages: ISBN 0151957479 (0-15-195747-9)
  Hardcover, Harcourt
- The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages: ISBN 1573225142 (1-57322-514-2)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books