Washoe County Library System

"From the New York Times bestselling author of THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK, the true story behind the creation of another masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THE SINNER AND THE SAINT is the deeply researched and immersive tale of how Dostoevsky came to write this great murder story-and why it changed the world. As a young man, Dostoevsky was a celebrated writer, but his involvement with the radical politics of his...

A distinguished cultural critic blends literary history, biography, and memoir in an exploration of Alice Walker's National Book Award-winning novel that examines its influence against a backdrop of the civil rights encroachments of the early 1980s. Mixing cultural criticism, literary history, biography, and memoir, an exploration of Alice Walker's critically acclaimed and controversial novel, The Color Purple. Alice Walker made history in 1983 when...

"From the award-winning biographer of Chaucer, the story of his most popular and scandalous character, from the Middle Ages to #MeToo Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognizably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers-from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or matched...

Literary Nonfiction. Essays. A blend of literary criticism and memoir, Jennifer Moxley's FOR THE GOOD OF ALL, DO NOT DESTROY THE BIRDS recounts a life spent in the company of birds and poems, intimately attuned to the mysteries of singing. These essays trace the poet's calling to sources in birdsong and sacrifice, asking, "Must a woman be sentenced to endless night for a poet to be born?" From the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the death of the poet's...

"A delightful romp through the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him became an act of blasphemy... and who the Bard might really be"-- Provided by publisher. "A thrillingly provocative investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be. The...

"A playful, highly visual exploration of novelistic structure and how novels are created, How to Draw a Novel is a meditation on literary craft that muses on how and why novels communicate with readers. In this witty and finely wrought collection of essays, Martain Solares opens the hood of how fiction operates, exploring the conventions of form, the novel as a house that one must build brick by brick, and the objects and characters that build out...

"Written by mortician and forensic expert Carla Valentine, The Science of Murder explores the real-life cases that inspired Agatha Christie and shows how the great mystery writer may have kept up to date with the latest developments in forensic science, from ballistics to blood-splatter analysis. Valentine examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, impressions, and toxicology in Christie's novels, before finally revealing the role the...

"Christian Wiman, a thinker "at the very source of theology" (Marilynne Robinson), braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work"-- Provided by publisher. "Christian Wiman braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work. Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer—perhaps none—do so with his urgency and...

Author Dean Sluyter, a meditation teacher, spent 33 years teaching English and the literature of enlightenment at the Pingry School in New Jersey. In this book designed to engage students and general readers, he interprets classics of literature through the lens of Buddhism. Writing in a conversational style with a sense of humor, he uncovers passages that mirror major concepts of Buddhism, in works by writers from Frederick Douglass and William Blake...

Presents a collection of essays, book reviews, and other writings from more than thirty years of the author's contributions to the London Review of Books.