A slim volume featuring Georges Perec's writings on the simple task of arranging books and what it can reveal about life

One of the most singular and extravagant imaginations of the twentieth century, the novelist and essayist Georges Perec was a true original who delighted in wordplay, puzzles, taxonomies and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. In these virtuoso writings about books and language, he discusses different ways of reading, a list of the things he really must do be...

A team of distinguished and internationally acclaimed writers and illustrators share their personal insights into the maps they love, the maps they use and the maps that set them dreaming.

An in-depth and illustrated guide to the epic lives of Tolkien's heroes.

This book demonstrates how authors performing the role of a public intellectual discuss ideas and opinions regarding society while using literary strategies and devices in and beyond the text. Their assumed persona thereby reads the world as a book - interpreting it and offering alternative scenarios for understanding it.

This clear and engaging book offers readers an introduction to European Literary History from antiquity through to the present day. Each chapter discusses a short extract from a literary text, whilst including a close reading and a longer essay examining other key texts of the period and their place within European Literature. Offering a view of Europe as an evolving cultural space and examining the mobility and travel of literature both within and out of Europe, this guide offers an introduc...

Japanese Literature: From Murasaki to Murakami provides a concise introduction to the literature of Japan that traces its origins in the seventh century and explores a literary legacy—and its cultural contexts—marked by the intersection of aristocratic elegance and warrior austerity. Coverage extends to the present day with a focus on the complex twists and turns that mark Japan’s literature in the modern period. In under one-hundred pages of narrative, Marcus’s account of Japanese litera...

The complete guide to doing a literature search and review also contains a wealth of features to calm students overwhelmed at the prospect of doing their dissertation or thesis

Demonstrates that the search for oral origins in African literature is a quest for African authenticity. In a critique and revision of the conceptual category of orality as it has been understood and used by scholars, this title stresses the transformation of narrative genres as an index of sociopolitical relations and authorial vision.

"This is an extremely well written and carefully argued book that is quite persuasive. It should be essential reading for every scholar in African literature....

A Theory of Adaptation explores the continuous development of creative adaptation, and argues that the practice of adapting is central to the story-telling imagination. Linda Hutcheon develops a theory of adaptation through a range of media, from film and opera, to video games, pop music and theme parks, analysing the breadth, scope and creative possibilities within each. This new edition is supplemented by a new preface from the author, discussing both new adaptive forms/platforms and recent...