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From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
Marina Warner · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorReading 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
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.
Heroines
Kate Zambreno · 309 pages
"On the last day of December, 2009 Kate Zambreno began a blog called Frances Farmer Is My Sister, arising from her obsession with the female modernists and her recent transplantation to Akron, Ohio, where her husband held a university job. Widely reposted, Zambreno's blog became an outlet for her highly informed and passionate rants about the fates of the modernist "wives and mistresses." In her b
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
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Julia Kristeva · 219 pages
"Kristeva is one of the leading voices in contemporary French criticism, on a par with such names as Genette, Foucault, Greimas and others ... [Powers of Horror is] an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on para-philosophical modes of discourse. The sections on Céline, for example, are ind
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
Peter Ackroyd · 518 pages
The Gnostic Gospels
Elaine Pagels · 184 pages
The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the mo
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
Walter Pater · 238 pages
Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance was one of the most talked about books in nineteenth-century Britain, and it remains a work of unusual importance to anyone interested in art history or English literature. Pater’s luxurious and finely wrought style inspired generations of writers, and his unique blend of scholarship, philosophy, and personal bias made his view of the quinte
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
Bruno Bettelheim · 328 pages
Discusses how fairy tales are used to educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children; how the tales reveal the child, subconsciously to himself.
The Pleasure of the Text
Roland Barthes · 67 pages
"What is it that we do when we enjoy a text? What is the pleasure of reading? The French critic and theorist Roland Barthes's answers to these questions constitute "perhaps for the first time in the history of criticism ... not only a poetics of reading ... but a much more difficult achievement, an erotics of reading ... Like filings which gather to form a figure in a magnetic field, the parts and
The Golden Thread
David Clare, Fiona McDonagh, Justine Nakase · 344 pages
This two-volume edited collection covers three hundred years of Irish women's playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners. Volume One looks at the period from 1716 to 1992, exploring such varied themes as the impact of space and place on identity, women's strategic use of genre, and theatrical responses to shifts in Irish politics and
The History of the Hobbit, Part One: Mr. Baggins
John D. Rateliff, J.R.R. Tolkien · 512 pages
The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder
Erin Blakemore · 224 pages
In this compelling book of beloved heroines and the remarkable writers who created them, Erin Blakemore explores how the pluck and dignity of literary characters such as Anne Shirley, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, Scarlett O'Hara, Scout Finch and Jo March can inspire women today.
Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film
Carol J. Clover · 265 pages
Do the pleasures of horror movies really begin and end in sadism? So the public discussion of film assumes, and so film theory claims. According to that view, the power of films like Halloween and Texas Chain Saw Massacre lies in their ability to yoke us in the killer's perspective and to make us party to his atrocities. In this book Carol Clover argues that sadism is actually the lesser part of t
The 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
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.
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion
Wayne G. Hammond, Christina Scull · 935 pages
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.
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.