The reviewers fought back, and the conflict was soon being reported in the mainstream media. This is the story of what happened, told in the protesters' own words.

    A sullen and arrogant graduate student, he never thought Austen would have anything to offer him. Then he read Emma—and everything changed. In this unique and lyrical book, Deresiewicz weaves the misadventures of Austen’s characters with his own youthful follies, demonstrating the power of the great novelist’s teachings—and how, for Austen, growing up and making mistakes are one and the same. Honest, erudite, and deeply moving, A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man’s discovery of the world outside himself.

    A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series will all follow the same structure:a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences, and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas; a summary of how the novel was received upon publication; a summary of how the novel has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations, literary prizes, etc.; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites and discussion forums; and a list of questions for reading groups to discuss.

    This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."--Cynthia OzickFollowing the collection The Broken Estate--which established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation--The Irresponsible Self confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of contemporary novels.In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches, he effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally earnest and appreciative view of the most discussed authors writing today, including Franzen, Pynchon, Rushdie, DeLillo, Naipaul, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith.This collection includes Wood's famous and controversial attack on "hysterical realism", and his sensitive but unsparing examinations of White Teeth and Brick Lane. The Irresponsible Self is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction.

    Recommended reading lists and selected poetry complete the volume.Contents: * Summation 1988: Fantasy by Terri Windling * Summation 1988: Horror by Ellen Datlow * Horror and Fantasy on the Screen by Edward Bryant * Obituaries * Death is Different by Lisa Goldstein * The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It) by Gene Wolfe * It Was the Heat by Pat Cadigan * The Cutter by Edward Bryant * The Freezer Jesus by John DuFresne * Voices of the Kill by Thomas M. Disch * Secretly by Ruth Roston * The Devil's Rose by Tanith Lee * Wempires by Daniel Pinkwater * Scatter My Ashes by Greg Egan * Unfinished Portrait of the King of Pain by Van Gogh by Ian McDonald * Shoo Fly by Richard Matheson * The Thing Itself by Michael Blumlein * The Soft Whisper of Midnight Snow by Charles de Lint * Roman Games by Ann Gay * The Princess, the Cat, and the Unicorn by Patricia C. Wrede * The Book and Its Contents by Robert Kelly * The Great God Pan by M. John Harrison * Lost Bodies by Ian Watson * Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons * Preflash by John M. Ford * Life of Buddha by Lucius Shepard * Appointment With Eddie by Charles Beaumont * Fragments of Papyrus from the Temple of the Older Gods by William Kotzwinkle * Spillage by Nancy Kress * Snowman by Charles L. Grant * The Scar by Dennis Etchison * Laiken Langstrand by Gwyneth Jones * The Last Poem About the Snow Queen and Pinocchio by Sandra M. Gilbert * Game in the Pope's Head by Gene Wolfe * Playing the Game by Ramsey Campbell * Faces by F. Paul Wilson * Snowfall by Jessie Thompson * Seal-Self by Sara Maitland * No Hearts, No Flowers by Barry N. Malzberg * The Boy Who Drew Unicorns by Jane Yolen * The Darling by Scott Bradfield * Night They Missed the Horror Show by Joe R. Lansdale * Your Story by Rick DeMarinis * Winter Solstice - Camelot Station by John M. Ford * The Boy Who Hooked the Sun by Gene Wolfe * Clem's Dream by Joan Aiken * Love In Vain by Lewis Shiner * In the Darkened Hours by Bruce Boston * A Golden Net for Silver Fishes by Ru Emerson * Dancing Among Ghosts by Jim Aikin * Honorable Mentions: 1988

    The Dialogic Imagination presents, in superb English translation, four selections from Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Problems of literature and esthetics), published in Moscow in 1975. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction to Bakhtin and his thought and a glossary of terminology.Bakhtin uses the category "novel" in a highly idiosyncratic way, claiming for it vastly larger territory than has been traditionally accepted. For him, the novel is not so much a genre as it is a force, "novelness," which he discusses in "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse." Two essays, "Epic and Novel" and "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel," deal with literary history in Bakhtin's own unorthodox way. In the final essay, he discusses literature and language in general, which he sees as stratified, constantly changing systems of subgenres, dialects, and fragmented "languages" in battle with one another.

    Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell's entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means.

    —New York Times Book ReviewNo writer I know of comes close to even trying to articulate the weird magic of poetry as Ruefle does. She acknowledges and celebrates in the odd mystery and mysticism of the act—the fact that poetry must both guard and reveal, hint at and pull back... Also, and maybe most crucially, Ruefle’s work is never once stuffy or overdone: she writes this stuff with a level of seriousness-as-play that’s vital and welcome, that doesn’t make writing poetry sound anything but wild, strange, life-enlargening fun. -The Kenyon ReviewProfound, unpredictable, charming, and outright funny...These informal talks have far more staying power and verve than most of their kind. Readers may come away dazzled, as well as amused... —Publishers WeeklyThis is a book not just for poets but for anyone interested in the human heart, the inner-life, the breath exhaling a completion of an idea that will make you feel changed in some way. This is a desert island book. —Matthew DickmanThe accomplished poet is humorous and self-deprecating in this collection of illuminating essays on poetry, aesthetics and literature... —San Francisco ExaminerOver the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential, Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter—and utterly pleasurable—immersion. Finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award.Mary Ruefle has published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and erasures. She lives in Vermont.

    In December 2012, millions will be introduced or reintroduced to J.R.R. Tolkien's classic with the arrival of the first of two film adaptations by acclaimed director Peter Jackson. Exploring The Hobbit is a fun, thoughtful, and insightful companion volume, designed to bring a thorough and original new reading of this great work to a general audience. Professor Corey Olsen (also known as the Tolkien Professor) will take readers on an in-depth journey through The Hobbit chapter by chapter, revealing the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the revolutions within the life of Bilbo Baggins. Exploring The Hobbit is a book that will make The Hobbit come alive for readers as never before.

    It is a delight and a solace, a challenge and a reward, and perhaps even an obsession. For two centuries Austen has enthralled readers. Few other authors can claim as many fans or as much devotion. So why are we so fascinated with her novels? What is it about her prose that has made Jane Austen so universally beloved?In essays culled from the last one hundred years of criticism juxtaposed with new pieces by some of today’s most popular novelists and essayists, Jane Austen’s writing is examined and discussed, from her witty dialogue to the arc and sweep of her story lines. Great authors and literary critics of the past offer insights into the timelessness of her moral truths while highlighting the unique confines of the society in which she composed her novels. Virginia Woolf examines Austen’s maturation as an artist and speculates on how her writing would have changed if she’d lived twenty more years, while C. S. Lewis celebrates Austen’s mirthful, ironic take on traditional values.Modern voices celebrate Austen’s amazing legacy with an equal amount of eloquence and enthusiasm. Fay Weldon reads Mansfield Park as an interpretation of Austen’s own struggle to be as “good” as Fanny Price. Anna Quindlen examines the enduring issues of social pressure and gender politics that make Pride and Prejudice as vital today as ever. Alain de Botton praises Mansfield Park for the way it turns Austen’s societal hierarchy on its head. Amy Bloom finds parallels between the world of Persuasion and Austen’s own life. And Amy Heckerling reveals how she transformed the characters of Emma into denizens of 1990s Beverly Hills for her comedy Clueless. From Harold Bloom to Martin Amis, Somerset Maugham to Jay McInerney, Eudora Welty to Margot Livesey, each writer here reflects on Austen’s place in both the literary canon and our cultural imagination.We read, and then reread, our favorite Austen novels to connect with both her world and our own. Because, as A Truth Universally Acknowledged so eloquently demonstrates, the only thing better than reading a Jane Austen novel is finding in our own lives her humor, emotion, and love.

    It's even bemoaned by poets: "I, too, dislike it," wrote Marianne Moore. "Many more people agree they hate poetry," Ben Lerner writes, "than can agree what poetry is. I, too, dislike it and have largely organized my life around it and do not experience that as a contradiction because poetry and the hatred of poetry are inextricable in ways it is my purpose to explore."In this inventive and lucid essay, Lerner takes the hatred of poetry as the starting point of his defense of the art. He examines poetry's greatest haters (beginning with Plato's famous claim that an ideal city had no place for poets, who would only corrupt and mislead the young) and both its greatest and worst practitioners, providing inspired close readings of Keats, Dickinson, McGonagall, Whitman, and others. Throughout, he attempts to explain the noble failure at the heart of every truly great and truly horrible poem: the impulse to launch the experience of an individual into a timeless communal existence. In The Hatred of Poetry, Lerner has crafted an entertaining, personal, and entirely original examination of a vocation no less essential for being impossible.

    Essays examine significant runs (by Jim Shooter, Paul Levitz, and Keith Giffen); the Legion's science, future architecture, and fashion; the role of women, homosexuality, and race; the early Legion's classical adaptations, its teenage cruelty, and its relation to the early Justice League; Lightning Lad's death and resurrection; whether the Legion should be allowed to age; the Amethyst saga; the themes of the reboot Legion; and the so-called Threeboot's relationship to adult adolescence and generational theory. From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    Falling into Theory is a brief and inexpensive collection of essays that asks literature students to think about the fundamental questions of literary studies today.

    The journal includes nonfiction, literary horror fiction, poetry, artwork and non-classifiable hybrid pieces.Vol. 1, Issue 1 Contents:• Foreword to Teatro Grottesco essay by Thomas Ligotti•The Nightmare of His Art: The Horrific Power of the Imagination in "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss and "Gas Station Carnivals" essay by W. Silverwood•The Gods in Their Seats, Unblinking short fiction by Kurt Fawver• Affirmation of the Spirit: Consciousness, Transformation, and the Fourth World in Film short fiction by Christopher Slatsky•Try the Veal poem by Robert Beveridge•How to Construct a Gun from Your Own Flesh short fiction by Michael Uhall•Notes on a Horror essay by Dr. Raymond Thoss•"Eccentric to the Healthy Social Order" : Inversions of Family, Community, and Religion in Thomas Ligotti's "The Last Feast of Harlequin" essau by Michael J. Abolafia•Wraiths poem by Wade German•Eraserhead as Antinatalist Allegoryessay by Colby Smith•The Alienation of the Self: Marx, Polanyi, and Ligottian Horroressay by S. L. Edwards•The Theatre of Ovid short fiction by Aaron Worth•Infinite Light, Infinite Darkness short fiction by Martin Rose•Night Walks: The Films of Val Lewton essay by Michael Penkas• Solar Flare short fiction by Paul L. Bates•Strange Bird poem by Ian Mullins•Nervous Wares & Abnormal Staresshort fiction by Devin Goff•My Time at the Drake Clinic short fiction by Jordan Krall•Singing the Song of My Unmaking short fiction by Christopher Ropes•"They say I should kill myself and not try to spoil their enjoyment in being alive": An Interview with Thomas Ligottiinterview by Wojciech Gunia

    She can see things no one else can, but can only draw them with her one webbed hand. Several generations have passed since North America was struck by a meteor that changed life forever. Now, Leora lives safely locked inside the walls of Village Three. Only the guards and croptenders are allowed out, where the world is said to be undeveloped and dangerous. Leora's heard stories of the ferocious birmbas -- half bear, half gorilla -- that resulted from the meteor. Mutants cannot be trusted.But Leora herself is considered a "defective" with her hidden hand and gift. When she risks her life to free a baby birmba, she finds the courage to escape beyond the tyrannical walls without knowing what she may find.