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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Road to Middle-earth
Tom Shippey · 252 pages
"The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey's classic work, now revised and expanded in paperback explores J.R.R. Tolkien's creativity and the sources of his inspiration. Shippey shows in detail how Tolkien's professional background led him to write The Hobbit and create a timeless charm for millions of readers. He argues convincingly that the source of Tolkien's inspiration lay not just in his love of
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan Culler · 152 pages
Culler offers insights into theories about the nature of language and meaning, looks at whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience, and outlines the ideas behind deconstruction and semiotics.
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories
Christopher Booker · 736 pages
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
Flannery O'Connor · 237 pages
The essays and articles in this volume are concerned mainly with the art of fiction--its quality, in regional writing; its nature and its aims; and its relatino to the writer's religion.
Literary Theory: An Introduction
Terry Eagleton · 244 pages
This classic work covers all of the major movements in literary studies in this century. Noted for its clear, engaging style and unpretentious treatment, Literary Theory has become the introduction of choice for anyone interested in learning about the world of contemporary literary thought.
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Azar Nafisi · 368 pages
Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; some had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to
Marxism and Literature
Raymond Williams · 217 pages
This study examines the place of literature within Marxist cultural theory, and offers an assessment of the contributions of previous thinkers to Marxist literary theory.
Poetics
Aristotle · 144 pages
One of the first books written on what is now called aesthetics. Although parts are lost (e.g., comedy), it has been very influential in western thought, such as the part on tragedy.
God: A Biography
Jack Miles · 446 pages
Miles shows us God in the guise of a great literary character, the hero of the Old Testament. In a close, careful, and inspired reading of that testament - book by book, verse by verse - God is seen from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. The God whom Miles reveals to us is a warrior whose greatest battle is with himself. We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his o
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf · 129 pages
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the m
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
Ian P. Watt · 319 pages
The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction
Frank Kermode · 187 pages
For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction
Alain Robbe-Grillet · 175 pages
Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of The Lord of the Rings
Mark Eddy Smith · 141 pages
The Lord of the Rings offers us essential lessons in living. Here we discover ordinary virtues like generosity, pity, hospitality, and rest. We meet extraordinary people like Bilbo, Gandalf, Tom Bombadil and Glorfindel. We learn about the roots of destruction in pride and betrayal. And we find the ingredients for success, such as community and sacrifice. Each of us -- even the most simple -- is ca
The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
Milan Kundera · 176 pages
Anatomy of Criticism
Northrop Frye · 383 pages
"Striking out at the conception of criticism as restricted to mere opinion or ritual gesture, Northrop Frye wrote this magisterial work proceeding on the assumption that criticism is a structure of thought and knowledge in its own right. In four essays on historical, ethical, archetypical, and rhetorical criticism, employing examples of world literature from ancient times to the present, Frye reco
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
Harold Bloom · 755 pages
"Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is an analysis of the central work of the Western canon, and of the playwright who not only invented the English language, but also, as Bloom argues, created human nature as we know it today. Before Shakespeare there was characterization; after Shakespeare, there were characters, men and women capable of change, with highly individual personalities." "Shake
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar · 719 pages
Discusses the works of Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Emily Dickinson.
How Fiction Works
James Wood · 273 pages
Provides a somewhat academic approach to a discussion of the main elements of fiction using examples (good and bad) from literature.
James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study
Stuart Gilbert · 405 pages