"From technical advice ('check that your verbs aren?t burdened by unnecessary hads and woulds') to setting the bar ('I expect the fiction I read to carry with it the conviction that it is written with no other incentive than that it must be written'), from the demands of readers ('they?d been given a story with a baby in it, and they damn well wanted that baby accounted for') to the foibles of public life ('I?ve never subscribed to the notion that...

'The relationship between my grandmother and her mother was very important and indeed crucial to her childhood and the very early days of her writing ... So, to have more insight into this particular aspect of my grandmother's early life is very valuable.' Mathew Prichard, Agatha Christie's grandson

Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie and Sylvia Plath are three of our most famous authors. For the first time this book tells in full

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"A nuanced, passionate exploration of the life and work of one of the most misunderstood writers of the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination--the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne--a superfan and scholar--radically reimagines the last years of Plath's life, confronts her suicide...

"Walden. Yesterday I came here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to "live deliberately" in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment...

Likely written around 1607 or 1608 and attributed at least in part to Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is an adventure-filled play that follows the extended sailing journeys of a young prince. Pericles, a young prince from Phoenicia, is forced to flee Antioch when he correctly guesses a riddle that reveals the incestuous activity of King Antiochus. Unable to stay at home in Tyre because of Antiochus' vengeance, he sails away and ends up shipwrecked...

What PC English professors don't want you to learn from . . .
- Beowulf: If we don't admire heroes, there's something wrong with us
- Chaucer: Chivalry has contributed enormously to women's happiness
- Shakespeare: Some choices are inherently destructive (it's just built into the nature of things)
- Milton: Our intellectual freedoms are Christian, not anti-Christian, in origin
- Jane Austen: Most men would be improved if they were...

In his preface to this 1917 guide to gathering, handling, and writing news stories, the author notes that the purpose of his work is to give aspiring reporters practical guidance for their duties and performance as journalists. Spencer's book is interesting from an historical point of view, but it also provides close analyses of all types of stories-analysis that could be applicable to any good news reporting today.

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 influence...

With the untimely death of England's great soldier-king, Henry V, the crown passes to his young and inexperienced son. While the nobles quarrel among themselves and compete for influence over the new monarch, the French seize the opportunity to reclaim their former territories from English possession. The success of the French armies rests upon an unlikely leader: the peasant girl Joan La Pucelle, known to history as Joan of Arc. The first of three...

In Orwell's Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell's full body of work--his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system--to examine what "Orwellian" truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell's writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of "fake news" and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism...