{"title":"Critical Insights","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the world's most influential authors and works with the Critical Insights series. These accessible guides offer comprehensive analysis, historical context, and diverse critical perspectives. Start your literary journey here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings-book-mildred-r-mickle-9781587656248","title":"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings","description":"This title includes in-depth critical discussions of Maya Angelou's novel. Maya Angelou's \"\"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings\"\" took the world by storm when it was published in 1969. As it shot to the top of best-seller lists, it made Angelou one of the most recognized black women in America. Despite controversy over its frank depiction of sexual abuse, the autobiography is still widely read in high schools and colleges across the country. Three decades after it was published, readers continue to admire Angelou's artistry, wit, and indomitable spirit. Edited by Mildred R. Mickle, Assistant Professor of English at Penn State Greater Allegheny, this volume brings together a variety of critical offerings on Angelou's famous autobiography. Mickle's introduction pays tribute to Angelou's achievement and examines the inspiration she drew from Phillis Wheatley's civil rights advocacy as well as the similarities between \"\"Caged Bird\"\" and Harriet Jacobs' \"\"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl\"\" and Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poetry. \"\"The Paris Review\"\"'s Christopher Cox reminds readers of how revolutionary Angelou's autobiography was when it was published and recounts the comments Angelou made on her work in an interview with George Plimpton. Four original essays by Amy Sickels, Pamela Loos, Neil Heims, and Robert C. Evans provide valuable context for reader's new to Angelou's work. Sickels discusses the historical events that surround Angelou's life: the civil rights, black power, and black arts movements as well as the emergence of black women's literature with the first publications of Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, and Lucille Clifton. Loos provides a survey of the major pieces of criticism on \"\"Caged Bird\"\", paying special attention to the book's early reception and how it fits in the autobiographical genre and slave narratives, as well as issues of race, gender, aesthetics, and identity. Neil Heims discusses the struggle for a black identity through readings of both \"\"Caged Bird\"\" and James Baldwin's \"\"If Beale Street Could Talk\"\". Finally, Robert C. Evans examines the role that both formal and informal education play in the young Maya's maturation. The collection also includes ten previously published essays that examine \"\"Caged Bird\"\" through a variety of lenses. Critics examine the character of young Maya, noting how her rootlessness contributes to her perseverance and adaptability, as well as how Angelou's narrative technique allows her to recount the details of incredible life without being controlled by them. The book's treatment of sexual abuse is also investigated in the larger context of other black women's narratives of sexual abuse. Other critics attend to \"\"Caged Bird\"\"'s place in the genre of ethnic autobiography and the particular challenges it presents to teachers seeking to expose students multicultural literature; the childhood roots of Angelou's political activism; the influence of blues music on the narrative's structure; and, the young Maya's relationships with the black community, literature, and the women in her life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733427888401,"sku":"NGR9781587656248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1587656248.jpg?v=1751088308"},{"product_id":"crisis-of-faith-book-robert-c-evans-9781429838252","title":"Crisis of Faith","description":"Exploration of theodicy, internal doubt and conflict, and secularism and other difficulties of faith when a belief system is seemingly compromised.   Rooted religiously in the texts of the Old and New Testament, the term crisis of faith is a common phrase that evokes intense spiritual strife and doubt, the eternal struggle between good and evil. Since that time, the term has become a pervasive theme of literature, manifesting itself within and embodying a broad range of human affairs and secular ideals, from the moral ambiguities of patriotism and war to mankind’s critical questioning of meaning and purpose in an increasingly modern world.   This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include Book of Job, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and All the King’s Men, as well as the works of Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Emily Dickinson, and Wilfred Owen. Among the contributors are Jonathan Wright, Elizabeth Woodworth, Robert Klevay, and Lawrence Berkove.   Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the theme as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources:  About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733855183121,"sku":"NGR9781429838252","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1429838256.jpg?v=1751177428"},{"product_id":"war-and-peace-book-brett-cooke-9781619253933","title":"War and Peace","description":"Tolstoy’s epic novel is one of the most famous pieces of Russian literature and is on the short list of the most important works of literature in the world. This volume examines Tolstoy’s unique achievement through a number of thought-provoking essays, and the interplay of the many genres of the text, including historical fiction, war drama, romance and realism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734479380753,"sku":"NGR9781619253933","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1619253933.jpg?v=1763472536"},{"product_id":"gender-sex-and-sexuality-book-margaret-sonser-breen-9781619254039","title":"Gender, Sex and Sexuality","description":"So much of great literature centres on explorations of gender, sex, and sexuality. What does it mean to be a proper man or woman; what if one cannot be properly called either? Should one wield one's sexual power politically? What is the relation between law, divine or secular, and sexuality? What does it mean to fail at doing gender? These are just some of the questions that this volume, edited by Margaret Breen, Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Connecticut, examines. Essays will consider a range of texts, including Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?, in light of issues of gender, sex, and sexuality, and their interplay.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49735318667537,"sku":"NGR9781619254039","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1619254034.jpg?v=1763483246"},{"product_id":"critical-insights-julius-caesar-book-salem-press-9781637000670","title":"Critical Insights: Julius Caesar","description":"Julius Caesar is one of William Shakespeare's most famous and important plays, and one of the most frequently taught, especially in high schools. Dealing with one of the most significant events in the history of Rome, the assassination of Julius Caesar and the subsequent end of the Roman Republic, the play has been performed and filmed numerous times. This volume examines the play from many different perspectives, including historical, aesthetic, and comparative points of view, among others, to add to the ongoing lively conversation the play has always stimulated.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49743461581073,"sku":"NGR9781637000670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1637000677.jpg?v=1751409831"},{"product_id":"john-cheever-book-robert-a-morace-9781587658273","title":"John Cheever","description":"This collection provides broad coverage of Cheever and his work. Original essays discuss the basic facts of Cheever's life and critical reputation. The work explores his complicated personal life and discusses his decorous style and fragmented structure, and his fascination with language.       This Critical Insights volume opens with essays that provide the basic facts of Cheever's life and critical reputation. Providing these facts is especially important in the case of the biography of a man who was prone to self-mythologizing. What's more, Cheever's version of his own life was long accepted as fact but, posthumously, has been complicated by unflattering revelations about his personal life in his daughter's memoirs, in his published journals and in two biographies.        Establishing the basic facts of Cheever's critical reception is equally important and differently challenging. The critical response to his writing was a roller-coaster ride. Reviewers and critics consistently failed to reach a consensus on Cheever's importance.        Suburbia is central to any analysis of Cheever. Here he is discussed as a suburban romancer rather than, as was more usually the case, a novelist of manners. Mixed with self-doubt, this approach \"\"may begin with allegorical ambitions but . . . then morphs into such tortuous interconnections, where superficial differences . . . become virtually synonymous with one another so that they are so entangled, one cannot decide where one ends and the other begins.\"\"        Cheever is described as \"\"an unfailingly surreal lyricist of disorientation . . . whose fictions are propelled by fear\"\" and who used imagination to mediate \"\"between senseless reality and an immensely coherent dreamworld.\"\"        Cheever's \"\"wariness\"\" toward modern life is treated in two essays that survey Cheever's entire career. In \"\"Supermarket and Superhighway,\"\" these two dominant symbols are representative of the \"\"nomadism and commercialism\"\" that characterise \"\"the modern malaise.\"\"        Another essay takes a similarly expansive look at Cheever's career (through Falconer) but reaches a very different conclusion. \"\"Cheever's subject has been the increasing alienation of modern man from a central role in his own life to that of a peripheral, almost ignored spectator to a social process that has little real need of any individuals, requiring merely a mass.\"\"        Cheever depicted the suburbs as \"\"a forceful yoking together of impossible contraries.\"\" In Cheever's much maligned third novel, Bullet Park, the \"\"wry moral censure of the banal suburban existence\"\" that is so evident in Cheever's short fiction is given the space needed to pursue \"\"dimensions of human dejection not completely accessible to the shorter form.\"\"        Putting Cheever's suburban fiction in historical context, in another essay the writer examines the cultural significance of the suburbs in the 50's and 60's, plus the sociological and fictional responses to the suburbanisation of American life. In this context, it is noted that Cheever treats his white suburban readers as if they were \"\"everyone.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49937647436049,"sku":"CIN1587658275G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1587658275.jpg?v=1763478579"},{"product_id":"american-dream-book-keith-newlin-9781429838214","title":"The American Dream","description":"Deconstruction of the promise of prosperity and success—and often subsequent disillusionment—associated with the American Dream and Experience  \"\"The American Dream\"\" is a phrase that has become an essential component of the American experience, a phrase that, once entered into the national lexicon, has come to define our nation’s identity, underlying nearly every aspect of our lives. And since the birth of the founding document of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, the idea of \"\"the American Dream\"\" has become a pervasive and frequently deconstructed theme within the canon of American literature.   Critical Insights: The American Dream offers thirteen original essays exploring the contexts and expressions of the dream as it is reflected in our imaginative literature. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant, Américo Paredes’s George Washington Gomez, and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, as well as the works of Willa Cather, Cormac McCarthy, Theodore Dreiser, and Michal Gold, among others. Among the contributors are Donna Packer-Kinlaw, Carol S. Loranger, Steven Frye, Roark Mulligan, and Lee Schweninger.   Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the theme as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources:  About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49949527900433,"sku":"CIN1429838213G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1429838213.jpg?v=1763481936"},{"product_id":"macbeth-book-salem-press-9781682175637","title":"Macbeth","description":"In-depth critical discussions of William Shakespeare's play - Plus complimentary, unlimited online access to the full content of this great literary reference. Essay topics will include consciousness, conscience, and madness in Macbeth and the lasting influence of the play. The volume will discuss the work on stage and screen and look at themes of environmentalism, nationalism and witchcraft in one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources:  About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50300741550353,"sku":"CIN1682175634VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1682175634.jpg?v=1763474010"},{"product_id":"alice-munro-book-charles-may-9781429837224","title":"Alice Munro","description":"A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Munro and the critical discussions surrounding her work.   Over more than forty years, Alice Munro's reputation has slowly grown to a point where she is today recognised as one of the finest living short story writers, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Often compared to Chekhov for her fastidiously structured plots and psychological complexity, she has won the admiration of writers and readers around the world. From her early success with Dance of the Happy Shades to her most recent collections, Munro has steadily proven that short stories can be just as intricate, moving, and formidable as the best novels.  Edited by Charles May, Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the Canadian writer. For readers who are studying Munro for the first time, a biographical sketch relates the details of her life and four essays survey the critical reception of Munro's work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Munro among her contemporaries, and review key themes in her work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other essays that explore topics like Munro's Canadian identity; her aesthetics and narrative devices; the psychology of her characters; and recurrent themes in her work, like secrets, acting, and memory. Works discussed include The Beggar Maid, Friend of My Youth, Runaway, Too Much Happiness, Lives of Girls and Women, The Progress of Love, and The Love of a Good Woman. Among the contributors are Philip Coleman, David Crouse, Robert Thacker, and Alisa Cox.  Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Munro's life and a list of her principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this iconic author in greater depth.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"Works Cited,\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendices offer a section of useful reference resources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50383124857105,"sku":"CIN1429837225G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51334146883857,"sku":"CIN1429837225A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1429837225.jpg?v=1763485128"},{"product_id":"jane-eyre-book-katie-r-peel-9781619252189","title":"Jane Eyre","description":"This volume presents a variety of new essays on Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, considered by many to have revolutionized the art of fiction. Many agree that Bronte was ahead of her time as she explored the individualistic character of Jane, and topics such as classism, sexuality, religion and issues of gender. Edited by Katie R. Peel, professors of Victorian literature and women's studies at University of North Carolina, this volume includes a variety of fresh approaches, including essays using feminist, reader-response, postcolonial, and performance theories.  The essays’ topics have also been chosen in order to enhance understanding of the novel and existing scholarship, and include the role of Adele, humour, religion, games and gamesmanship, conversation, and women’s space in Jane Eyre, as well as a comparison to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385354096913,"sku":"CIN161925218XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/161925218X.jpg?v=1763480817"},{"product_id":"american-short-story-book-carol-l-beran-9781619254251","title":"American Short Story","description":"Diverse in theme, style and cultural context, the American short story can take many forms. The only common theme is the short story’s unique ability to captivate an audience. This volume discusses the origin and popularity of the short story. Original critical essays on a diverse collection of writers highlight Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry, Kate Chopin and many others.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385360421137,"sku":"CIN1619254255G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1619254255.jpg?v=1763477146"},{"product_id":"gwendolyn-brooks-book-mildred-r-mickle-9781587656323","title":"Gwendolyn Brooks","description":"This title includes in-depth critical discussions of her life and works. With her mastery of traditional verse forms and insightful treatment of race, Gwendolyn Brooks carved a unique space for herself within American poetry. Her early work earned her numerous accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize and an appointment as the Poet Laureate of Illinois, and her later work saw her writing in response to the black art movement's call for politically and racially conscious poetry. Still, though her poetry underwent numerous transformations, Brooks maintained a powerful commitment to both her craft and to the lives of the ordinary people she knew from her South Side neighborhood. Edited by Mildred R. Mickle, Assistant Professor of English at Penn State Greater Allegheny, this volume examines Brooks' work from myriad perspectives. Mickle's introduction reflects on Brooks' legacy, locating her work as a bridge between the poets of the Harlem Renaissance and the poets of the black arts movement. Jascha Hoffman of \"\"The Paris Review\"\" then remembers his first encounter with Brooks' work and celebrates her achievement of carefully balancing craft with politics. Four original essays by Kathy Rugoff, Martin Kich, Matthew Bolton, and Robert C. Evans offer valuable context to readers new to Brooks and her work. Rugoff explores how the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights, black power, and black arts movements all influenced Brooks's work with close readings of selections from \"\"A Street in Bronzeville\"\", \"\"Annie Allen\"\", \"\"The Bean Eaters\"\", \"\"In the Mecca\"\", \"\"Riot\"\", and \"\"Family Pictures\"\". Kich provides a survey of the major pieces of Brooks's criticism, noting common foci like race, poetics, gender, literary influences, and Brooks' novel \"\"Maud Martha\"\". Bolton demonstrates Brooks' mastery and revision of traditional poetic forms by locating her \"\"The Anniad\"\" and \"\"Riders to the Blood-red Wrath\"\" within the epic and mock-epic traditions. Finally, Robert C. Evans offers a close reading of \"\"The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock\"\" to discuss how Brooks' adept use of poetic devices like rhythm, meter, rhyme, and enjambment helps create the meaning of the poem. Also included in this collection are twelve previously published essays that examine Brooks and her poetry through a variety of lenses. A review of \"\"The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks\"\" attempts to locate Brooks' place in American poetry. Close readings of Annie Allen uncover Brooks' modernist influences and study her use of double-consciousness, while a study of Brooks' use of apostrophe shows how she adapted it to multiple works, including \"\"Annie Allen\"\" and \"\"The Sermon on the Warpland\"\". Other critics explore the historical contexts of Brooks' work: readings of \"\"Negro Heroes\"\" and \"\"Gay Chaps at the Bar\"\" discuss America's reception of black veterans after World War II, and an essay on \"\"In the Mecca\"\" draws on articles from Harper's and \"\"Time\"\" to explore the real-life apartment complex. Still other critics focus on Brooks' synthesis of poetry and politics through examinations of \"\"In the Mecca\"\", \"\"Sermon on the Warpland\"\", \"\"Report from Part One\"\", and \"\"Riot\"\". Lastly, a look at the children of Brooks' poetry reveals them to be a means through which she critiques dominant ideas of race and gender and reaches out to the next generation. Finally, a chronology of Brooks' life, a thorough list of her published works, and an extensive bibliography of critical offerings provide a wealth of resources for readers desiring to study Brooks in greater depth. Each essay is 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of 'Works Cited', along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50393714622737,"sku":"CIN1587656329G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1587656329.jpg?v=1763472140"},{"product_id":"magical-realism-book-ignacio-lopez-calvo-9781619254138","title":"Magical Realism","description":"Magical Realism analyses its evolution as well as its manifestations in different cultures. Several essays discuss the struggle between the hegemonic imposition of western modernity and subaltern, ethnicized, non-western conceptualizations in the Third World. Magical realist cultural production is thus seen as a tool for questioning Eurocentric views, as it endows non-western worldviews with additional agency.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50395434778897,"sku":"CIN1619254131G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1619254131.jpg?v=1763478920"},{"product_id":"lgbtq-literature-book-margaret-sonser-breen-9781619254237","title":"LGBTQ Literature","description":"So much of great literature centres on explorations of gender, sex, and sexuality. What does it mean to be a proper man or woman; what if one cannot be properly called either? Should one wield one’s sexual power politically? What is the relation between law, divine or secular, and sexuality? These are just some of the questions that this volume examines through an analysis of a wide range of texts.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50395438874897,"sku":"CIN1619254239G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1619254239.jpg?v=1763482062"},{"product_id":"of-mice-and-men-book-barbara-heavilin-9781682172667","title":"Of Mice and Men","description":"In-depth critical discussions of John Steinbeck's novel - Plus complimentary, unlimited online access to the full content of this great literary reference.  With an array of contributions by leading Steinbeck scholars, Critical Insights: Of Mice and Men provides a rich array of fresh perspectives and valuable information on this short but beloved text. Essay topics include: the masculine psyche, alienation, and the plight of migrants, and consideration of why this novel is still in high school curriculum's today.  Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of \"\"Works Cited,\"\" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources:    About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50399863603473,"sku":"CIN168217266XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/168217266X.jpg?v=1750831876"},{"product_id":"toni-morrison-book-solomon-o-iyasere-9781587656224","title":"Toni Morrison","description":"Winner of the Pultizer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Books Critics Circle Award, and the Noble Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison's fiction has had a profound effect in shaping the discussion of African American literature, life, and aesthetics. This volume collects some of the finest pieces of Morrison scholarship.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50461859021073,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50461859807505,"sku":"CIN1587656221G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1587656221.jpg?v=1763478159"},{"product_id":"louise-erdrich-book-p-jane-hafen-9781429837231","title":"Louise Erdrich","description":"A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Erdrich and the critical discussions surrounding her work.        One of the great Native American novelists of the present day, Louise Erdrich has won over legions of readers with her strong attachment to the people and places of her native North Dakota, her carefully constructed plots, and her wonderfully complex and sympathetic characters. From her early success with Love Medicine to her latest offerings with The Plague of Doves and Shadow Tag, she has again and again proven herself to be a true sorceress of language.        Edited by P. Jane Hafen, Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, advisory editor of Great Plains Quarterly, Frances C. Allen Fellow, D'Arcy McNickle Centre for the History of the American Indian, The Newberry Library and Clan Mother of the Native American Literature Symposium, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on one of the most widely read authors of Native American fiction. For readers who are studying Erdrich for the first time, a biographical sketch relates the details of her life and four essays survey the critical reception of Erdrich's work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Erdrich among her contemporaries, and review key themes in her work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other essays that explore topics like Native American identity, spiritualism, language, and assimilation issues, as well as relationships and economic and social issues. Works discussed include Love Medicine, The Antelope Wife, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Plague of Doves, and The Master Butchers Singing Club, as well as selections of Erdrich's short fiction and poetry.        Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Erdrich's life and a list of her principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this fascinating author in greater depth.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51178639982865,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51178642080017,"sku":"CIN1429837233G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1429837233.jpg?v=1763476007"},{"product_id":"good-evil-book-margaret-breen-9781429837361","title":"Good \u0026 Evil","description":"Great starting point for students seeking an introduction to the theme and the critical discussions surrounding it.          Good and evil have existed throughout human history, and humanity has been attempting to come to grips with the idea of them for just as long. From allegorical morality tales to cathartic horror stories to all-to-real personal narratives of unspeakable events, literature has always provided an especially powerful medium for the study of good and evil.          Profoundly concerned with the making and remaking of meaning, literature allows for the questioning, resisting, and refiguring of good and evil, and it does so on the levels of content and form. Literature's effects resonate: they are not only intellectual but also sensuous, and they can be immediate as well as long-lasting; unexpected and surprising. Literature engages us with ourselves, with each other, and with the world beyond us, and even when other means for understanding experience cannot. Accordingly, literature can provide a forum in which individuals can grapple with their personal questions on good and evil, experiencing them in scenes and characters they might never physically encounter. Literature - the telling of stories - also provides a crucial vehicle for memory, advocacy, and resilience. It can empower marginalised and oppressed groups, whose voices may well be silenced within other cultural and social contexts, with a crucial vehicle for the articulation of social justice issues.          Edited by Margaret Breen, Professor of English and Associate Department Head at University of Connecticut, Storrs, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include King Lear; Paradise Lost; Maus; The Scarlet Letter; Jane Eyre; The Picture of Dorian Gray; The Farming of Bones; Train to Pakistan; Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.        Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the theme of good and evil and as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51322202030353,"sku":"CIN1429837365G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1429837365.jpg?v=1763477473"},{"product_id":"sun-also-rises-book-keith-newlin-9781587657139","title":"The Sun Also Rises","description":"The essays in this volume bring together a variety of new, classic, and contemporary criticism on Hemingway's masterpiece. Essay topics include an exploration of the novel's cultural context with a discussion of Hemingway's involvement in the Parisian expatriate community, the portrayal of masculinity and femininity within the novel against the cultural changes brought on by war, and perspectives on the kind of morality the novel offers and what qualities can be considered heroic in Hemingway's protagonists.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52458550821137,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52458551935249,"sku":"CIN1587657139G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781587657139.jpg?v=1763480583"},{"product_id":"handmaid-s-tale-book-salem-press-9781587656200","title":"The Handmaid's Tale","description":"Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale won international acclaim when it was first published in 1985; with it, Atwood won Canada's Governor General's Award as well as the Arthur C Clarke Award and was nominated for the Booker Prize. This title collects some the novel's best critics to introduce high school students and undergraduates.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52865474167057,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52865474298129,"sku":"NGR9781587656200","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781587656200.jpg?v=1765283805"},{"product_id":"things-fall-apart-book-m-keith-booker-9781587657115","title":"Things Fall Apart","description":"Introductory essays reflect on Achebe's pioneering achievement and evaluate the enduring, international popularity of Things Fall Apart. A brief biography follows, and a quartet of new essays provide a framework for in-depth study. The essays survey major trends in criticism in the novel and discuss Achebe's masterful use of language. Also included is a comparison of Things Fall Apart to major literary works within the Western cannon, such as the Odyssey and the Iliad. Other essays discuss the depiction of gender, cultural violence, and the portrayal of colonization within the novel.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52994858549521,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52994859073809,"sku":"CIN1587657112G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781587657115.jpg?v=1767626947"},{"product_id":"critical-insights-frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-book-james-f-nicosia-9781637007327","title":"Critical Insights: Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus","description":"Amidst rapid technological advancements, moral dilemmas, and ethical questions surrounding scientific progress, Mary Shelley’s iconic novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, still resonates in contemporary society. The frame-tale novel is groundbreaking in giving a voice to the monster via its epistolary embedded-narrative form.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53183263179025,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53183263408401,"sku":"NGR9781637007327","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781637007327.jpg?v=1772282910"},{"product_id":"critical-insights-dante-alighieri-book-robert-c-evans-9781637007389","title":"Critical Insights: Dante Alighieri","description":"Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is one of the most important poets in the history of Western literature. The present volume will explore not just The Divine Comedy but many of his other works as well, taking into account deliberately diverse perspectives, including the biographical, historical, sociological, historical, and aesthetic.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53624569823505,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53624570183953,"sku":"NGR9781637007389","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781637007389.jpg?v=1780644640"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/critical-insights-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}