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Description
Explore the Hero's Journey in stories as old as humanity and as new as last night's dream
The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change. — Joseph Campbell
Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faceshas influenced millions of readers by combining the insights
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Best-selling, Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie offers incisive, often humorous takes on literature, culture and world events in this New York Times Notable Book. In these stimulating pieces, Rushdie addresses a variety of subjects, including the death of the novel, India, soccer and the Rolling Stones. "Sometimes pensive, sometimes marvelously funny, always lucid essays ... by the renowned Anglo-Indian novelist."-Kirkus Reviews, starred...
23) As you like it
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As You Like It (1599) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. As You Like It was probably inspired by Thomas Lodge's Rosalynd, Euphues Golden Legacie (1587), a story based on "The Tale of Gamelyn," a Middle English romance. For its deconstruction of traditional gender roles and depiction of homoeroticism, As You Like It remains an important and frequently performed play in Shakespeare's oeuvre. "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely...
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind..' Based on a lecture given at Cambridge and first published in 1929, 'A Room of One's Own' interweaves Woolf's personal experience as a female writer with themes ranging from Austen and Brontë to Shakespeare's gifted (and imaginary) sister. 'Three...
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"In the mid-twentieth century, Canadian literature was transformed from a largely ignored trickle of books into an enormous cultural phenomenon that produced Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, and Mordecai Richler, and so many others. In Arrival, acclaimed writer and critic Nick Mount answers the question: What caused the CanLit Boom?"--Provided by publisher.
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Autobiography of Mark Twain (1907) is a collection of autobiographical writings by American humorist Mark Twain. Dictated toward the end of his life, the Autobiography of Mark Twain is a series of brief reflections on 74 years of fame, hard work, and adventure by an icon of American literature. Originally serialized in the North American Review, the United States' oldest literary magazine, the Autobiography of Mark Twain has gone through countless...
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"Delightful." -Mary Norris, The New Yorker
A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world's most polarizing punctuation mark
The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?
In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark,...
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Did you know that 'Almost' is the longest word in the English language with all of its letters in alphabetical order? Or that 'Stewardesses' is the longest word you can type solely with your left hand? Or that fireflies aren't actually flies, they're beetles? From information about words and their uses, to useful lists of things you never knew had names, palindromes, famous lines from literature and film, bizarre test answers and more, The Weird World...
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"Few writers today have reshaped our view of the ancient Greek myths more than revered bestselling author Natalie Haynes. Divine Might is a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin, including: Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father's brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), the goddess of war and provider of wise counsel;...
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Navigating the Shadow World takes readers deep into the rich universe of Cassandra Clare's New York Times–bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. With intelligent but accessible explorations of each volume of the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series, Liv Spencer delivers the next best thing to a Shadowhunter's Codex with commentary on the books as well as the references to folklore, legends, and literature. Spencer also recounts Cassandra...
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The beloved memoirist and bestselling author of Population: 485 reflects on the lessons he's learned from his unlikely alter ego, French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "The journey began on a gurney," writes Michael Perry, describing the debilitating kidney stone that led him to discover the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Reading the philosopher in a manner he equates to chickens pecking at scraps-including those eye-blinking moments...
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"An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential writers, an artist who continues to inspire fans and creatives to cultivate practices of deep attention, rigorous interrogation and beautiful style. Joan Didion was a writer's writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life's telling details. Her insights continue to...
33) Oliver Twist
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Appears on list
Description
An abridged version of the adventures of the orphan boy who is forced to practice thievery and live a life of crime in nineteenth-century London.
34) Daddy lessons
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Description
"Cowboy erotica meets Kathy Acker in this smart, raunchy look at a queer sexual awakening. Part memoir, part literary study, part formalist exercise in excitement, Daddy Lessons is a transgressive text of pleasure, bodies, the Lord, and the West. In this post-gender, post-sexuality, queer prairie Decameron, Steacy Easton's sexual anxiety becomes textual anxiety. This is a messy history of Mormon missionaries, bathhouses, Anglican boarding schools,...
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An exploration of Timothy Findley's life and struggles through an exploration of his private journals and his relationships with family, his beloved partner, Bill Whitehead, and his friends. Based on interviews and archival research, this biography explores Findley's life and work, the issues that consumed him, and his often profound depression over the evils of the twentieth century.
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Description
We know the facts of Mary Shelley's life in some detail-the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous...
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A brilliant, idiosyncratic collection of introductions and afterwords (plus some liner notes) by New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon.
In Bookends, Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon offers a compilation of pieces about literature-age-old classics as well as his own-that presents a unique look into his literary origins and influences, the books that shaped his taste and formed his ideas about writing...
38) Romeo and Juliet
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Series
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Description
"Romeo and Juliet", one of William Shakespeare's most iconic tragedies, tells the poignant tale of young love and family conflict. Set in Verona, Italy, the story revolves around the passionate romance between Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, members of feuding families.
The star-crossed lovers meet at a masquerade ball and quickly fall deeply in love, despite their families' bitter rivalry. Their secret relationship leads to a series of events...
39) Julius Caesar
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Description
William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is a gripping political drama that delves into the complex themes of power, betrayal, and the consequences of ambition.
Set in ancient Rome, the play unfolds in the wake of Caesar's triumphant return from war. As the city celebrates his victories, a group of senators, including Brutus and Cassius, grows increasingly concerned about Caesar's growing influence and potential tyranny. They plot his assassination...
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