In arguably his most personal and lasting book, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors-- texts he has had by heart since childhood.Gone are the polemi...

A lost nineteenth-century literary life, brilliantly rediscovered--Letitia Elizabeth Landon, hailed as the female Byron; she changed English poetry; her novels, short stories, and criticism, like Byron though in a woman's voice, explored the dark sid...

From the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting: a narratively driven, deeply human biography of the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai—also known as Li PoIn his own time (701–762), Li Bai's poems—shaped by Daoist thought and character...

An enlightening and entertaining collection of the most esteemed love poems in the English canon, retold in contemporary language everyone can understand   James Anthony has long enjoyed poetry with a strict adherence to beat, rhythm, and rhymin...

A New York Times Notable BookFrom Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not ...

From the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, an inspired, thoughtful, and deeply personal book about reading and writing novels.  In this fascinating set of essays, based on the talks he delivered at Harvard University as part of the distinguished Nor...

The Nobel Lecture in Literature, delivered by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans) at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 7, 2017, in an elegant, clothbound edition.       In their ann...

The story of literature in sixteen acts—from Homer to Harry Potter, including The Tale of Genji, Don Quixote, The Communist Manifesto, and how they shaped world history In this groundbreaking book, Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journe...

From The New York Times best-selling author of Paris to the Moon and beloved New Yorker writer, a memoir that captures the romance of New York City in the 1980s. When Adam Gopnik and his soon-to-be-wife, Martha, left the comforts of home in Montreal ...

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED―ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!―TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICSNo one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) w...

From the author of the beloved New York Times best-selling The End of Your Life Book Club, an inspiring and magical exploration of the power of books to shape our lives in an era of constant connectivity. Why is it that we read? Is it to pass time? T...

How do you clothe a book? In this deeply personal reflection, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri explores the art of the book jacket from the perspectives of both reader and writer. Probing the complex relationships between text and i...