The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China is the first monograph in English on a controversial Ming dynasty literary figure. It examines and re-assesses the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587–1646), a poet, dramatist, and politician in the late Ming period. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly regarded poet, but is best known as a dramatist, and his poetry is now largely unknown. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming–Qing transition, and as a result his literary work―his plays as well as his poetry―has been neglected and undervalued. Hardie argues that Ruan’s literary work is of much greater significance in the history of Chinese literature than has generally been recognised since his own time. Ruan, rather than being a transgressive figure, is actually a very typical late Ming literatus, and as such his attitudes towards identity and authenticity can add to our understanding of these issues in late Ming intel
Friendship and magical realism sparkle on the page in this heartwarming, delightfully eccentric illustrated middle-grade gem from an extraordinary new literary voice. Perfect for fans of A Snicker of Magic and The Penderwicks.Alberto lives alone in the town of Allora, where fish fly out of the sea and the houses shine like jewels. He is a coffin maker and widower, spending his quiet days creating the final resting places of Allora's people.Then one afternoon a magical bird flutters into his garden, and Alberto, lonely inside, welcomes it into his home. And when a kindhearted boy named Tito follows the bird into Alberto's kitchen, a door in the old man's heart cracks open. Tito is lonely too--but he's also scared and searching for a place to hide. Fleeing from danger, he just wants to feel safe for once in his life. Can the boy and the old man learn the power of friendship and escape the shadows of their pasts?With a tender bond that calls to mind The Girl Who Drank the Moon, charming c
Nora從沒把自己當成故事主角，身為精明強勢的出版經紀人和疼愛小妹的大姊，哪種身分都似與書中夢幻甜美的女主角相去甚遠。一場拗不過妹妹的旅行，一個新仇疊加舊恨的暴躁編輯，算不上美好邂逅，但是否有新的篇章悄然寫下…？A by-the-book literary agent must decide if happily ever after is worth changing her whole life for in this insightful, delightful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. Nora Stephens life is books―she’s read them all―and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away―with visions of a small town transformation for Nora who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doct
With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a huge literary paradox, for it i
The fourth part of a sensational literary cycle that has been hailed as "perhaps the most important literary enterprise of our times." --Rachel Cusk,Guardian18 years old and fresh out of high school, Karl Ove Knausgaard moves to a tiny fisherman's village far north of the polar circle to work as a school teacher. He has no interest in the job itself -- or in any other job for that matter. His intention is to save up enough money to travel while finding the space and time to start his writing career. Initially everything looks fine: He writes his first few short stories, finds himself accepted by the hospitable locals and receives flattering attention from several beautiful local girls. But then, as the darkness of the long polar nights start to cover the beautiful landscape, Karl Ove's life also takes a darker turn. The stories he writes tend to repeat themselves, his drinking escalates and causes some disturbing blackouts, his repeated attempts at losing his virginit
**Winner of the 2023 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize**Discover the world as you've never seen it before - through the eyes of animals.'Immersive and mind-blowing' Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of TreesThe Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving only a tiny sliver of this world.In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, welcoming us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. Showing us that in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.A NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST, SPECTATOR, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT and NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR**Winner of 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction**'Suffused with magic' Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the
The Guodian manuscripts are a cache of literary and philosophical texts from the fourth century BCE, discovered in a Warring States–period tomb in China’s Hubei Province. Through detailed decipherment and textual analysis, Kuan-yun Huang investigates the historical and philosophical contexts of these texts and convincingly proposes their association with Zisi, the grandson of Confucius. Huang not only offers an in-depth portrait of this famous scion from excavated texts and transmitted literary records, but also reveals the connection of the Guodian texts with early intellectual tradition in China, including the teachings of Xunzi, Mencius, Confucius, and the legendary Laozi, as well as the effort of rewriting that transformed Zisi’s original teachings into a conformist line of thinking, which defined and constituted the Confucian tradition of a later time.-------------- In Kuan-yun Huang’s The Lost Texts of Confucius’ Grandson, the shadowy figure of Zisi comes to life as an
Most known for his creative fictions that tackle literary questions of authorship as well as more philosophical notions such as multiverse theory, Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has captivated scholars from a variety of disciplines since his emergence on the international scene. However, much of the scholarship surrounding Borges does not focus on the reception of Borges's works in the fields of philosophy, the visual arts, film, political science, media theory, mathematics, and law, nor do it consider how his affiliations and interests changed over the course of his long life. In The Oxford Handbook of Jorge Luis Borges, editors Daniel Balderston and Nora Benedict, along with a team of international scholars, contextualize Jorge Luis Borges's work for a new generation of twenty-first-century readers and critics. This volume shifts the emphasis to Borges's working life, his writing processes, his collaborations and networks, and the political and cultural background of
The storms are coming.... Something has happened to Serafina. She has awoken into a darkness she does not understand, scarred from a terrible battle, only to find that life at Biltmore Estate has changed in unimaginable ways. Old friends do unthinkable things and enemies seem all around.A mysterious threat moves towards Biltmore, a force without a name, bringing with it violent storms and flooding that stands to uproot everything in its path. Serafina must uncover the truth about what has happened to her and find a way to harness her strange new powers before it's too late. With only days to achieve the impossible, Serafina fights to reclaim herself as the Guardian of Biltmore, friend of Braeden, daughter of her Pa, and heroine of the Blue Ridge Mountains and all the folk and creatures that call it home. In the epic third installment of Robert Beatty's #1 bestselling series, Serafina takes her rightful place among literary champions as she battles fiercely to defend all she loves and b
寫於《尤利西斯》等長篇鉅作之前，今年的Bloomsday，讓我們從《都柏林人》開始。數則篇幅短小，言語精煉的故事，承載喬伊斯眼中最遠也最近的故土──即上世紀初的都柏林──自渾噩到頓悟的苦澀。精巧典雅的Macmillan小金書，隨身一冊，隨時展讀。First published in 1914, Dubliners depicts middle-class Catholic life in Dublin at the start of the twentieth century. Themes within the stories include the disappointments of childhood, the frustrations of adolescence, and the importance of sexual awakening. Joyce was twenty-five years old when he wrote this collection of short stories, among which 'The Dead' is probably the most famous.Considered at the time as a literary experiment, Dubliners contains moments of joy, fear, grief, love and loss, which combine to form one of the most complete depictions of a city ever written, and the stories remain as refreshingly original and surprising in this century as they did in the last. With an afterword by Peter Harness. Designed to appeal to the booklover, Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound hardback gift editions of much loved classic titles.
From the international phenomenon Karl Ove Knausgaard, the extraordinary final volume of 'the most significant literary enterprise of our times' (Guardian)In this final novel in the My Struggle cycle, Karl Ove Knausgaard examines life, death, love and literature with unsparing rigour and begins to count the cost of his project. The End reflects on the fallout from the earlier books, with Knausgaard facing the pressures of literary acclaim and its often shattering repercussions. It is at once a meditation on writing and its relationship with reality, and an account of a writer's relationship with himself - from his ambitions to his doubts and frailties.'Epic... It creates a world that absorbs you utterly' Sunday Times'Compulsively addictive' Daily Telegraph'My Struggle has strong claim to be the great literary event of the twenty-first century' Guardian'A mesmerising, thought-provoking and genuinely important work of art' Spectator
LARRY McMURTRY IS THAT RAREST OF ARTISTS, a prolific and genre-transcending writer who has delighted generations with his witty and elegant prose. In Literary Life, the sequel to Books, he expounds on
With a new preface as well as a final chapter on William S. Burroughs’s last years, the acclaimed Literary Outlaw is the only existing full biography of an extraordinary figure. Anarchist, heroin addi
Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West led a charmed life in many respects. Born into a distinguished Boston family, she appeared in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, then lived in the Soviet Union with a gr
Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West led a charmed life in many respects. Born into a distinguished Boston family, she appeared in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, then lived in the Soviet Union with a gr
An exploration of the relationship between literature and life, this study examines the effect on readers of "suicidal literature" -- novels and poems that depict, and sometimes glorify, the act of su
Through the performance of application readers connect the literary text with the world, focusing on elements in the text and comparing them with elements of the external world as they know it, an ope
A dazzling new collection of essays—on reading, writing, form, and thought—from one of America’s master writers. It begins with the personal, both past and present. It emphasizes Gass’s lifelong at
John Jeter was a burnt-out journalist living in Florida when his younger brother, who once saved Jeter's life by donating one of his kidneys, telephoned with life-altering news: he found the perfect s
