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Employee Picks
Literary Criticism


There are 29 books in this aisle.

Featured Titles in Employee Picks - Literary Criticism
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How Literature Saved My Life
How Literature Saved My Life
by David Shields
Staff Pick
David Shields's new book is a collagist's and lit lover's dream come true. Erudite and thoughtful, if you've ever lived or read a novel, you'll find much to admire and ruminate upon.... (read more)

List Price $25.95
Your price: $21.00
Used - Hardcover

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Eros the Bittersweet (American Literature)
Eros the Bittersweet (American Literature)
by Anne Carson
Staff Pick
Beginning with Sappho's description of Eros as "sweetbitter," Anne Carson traces the treatment and understanding of Eros in philosophy and literature, both classical and contemporary. Written in accessible, smart, and lyrical prose, Eros the Bittersweet... (read more)

Your price: $13.95
New - Trade Paper

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Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)
by Francine Prose
Staff Pick
Reading Like a Writer is a treasure chest. You can crack it open at any chapter and come away enriched. Prose is one of the best teachers around, and for the price of a paperback, you are getting an Ivy League education in writing. For people who love... (read more)

List Price $13.99
Your price: $8.00
Used - Trade Paper

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Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
by Mark Twain
Staff Pick
If the only Twain you've ever read is Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, or Connecticut Yankee, this collection shall prove much more than surprising (either pleasantly or appallingly, depending on your sensibilities). Published posthumously despite the objections... (read more)

List Price $14.99
Your price: $7.98
Sale - Trade Paper

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Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler
Staff Pick
Girl power, Riot Grrrl, first-, second-, or third-wave feminist — however you choose to label your gender-equality insistence, Bitch magazine has had you covered. To celebrate their ten year anniversary, Bitch has released this cultural compendium; a... (read more)

List Price $17.00
Your price: $9.00
Used - Trade Paper

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Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home
Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home
by Susan Hill
Staff Pick
Struck by the sudden realization that she possesses quite a few books she's never read, author Susan Hill decides to take a year off buying books so that she can read, and reread, the many treasures in her possession. Howards End Is on the Landing is the... (read more)

List Price $15.95
Your price: $10.95
Used - Trade Paper

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The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
by Wallace Stevens
Staff Pick
Inscrutable poet-of-ideas Wallace Stevens is a deepening favorite of mine. This, despite the fact that I don't always understand his poems. This, despite the fact that even when I think I might understand, the precision of a world glimpsed in a "jar from... (read more)

List Price $10.95
Your price: $4.95
Used - Mass Market

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The Polysyllabic Spree
The Polysyllabic Spree
by Nick Hornby
Staff Pick
Name one other book critic that consistently makes you laugh out loud without denigrating the work of his subject. Right, you can't. (If you can, please, let me know.) Hornby's monthly "What I've Been Reading" columns for the Believer magazine (collected... (read more)

List Price $14.00
Your price: $3.95
Used - Trade Paper

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Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
by Francine Prose
Staff Pick
Reading Like a Writer is a treasure chest. You can crack it open at any chapter and come away enriched. Prose is one of the best teachers around, and for the price of a paperback, you are getting an Ivy League education in writing. For people who love... (read more)

List Price $23.99
Your price: $7.50
Used - Hardcover

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Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know
Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know
by Paul Gravett
Staff Pick
Whether you're a novice or longtime reader, there's something of interest for you in Graphic Novels, an insightful and entertaining introduction to an art form whose popularity is growing steadily.... (read more)

List Price $29.95
Your price: $10.95
Used - Trade Paper

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Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 (Mark Twain Papers)
Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 (Mark Twain Papers)
by Mark Twain
Staff Pick
At last, the wait is over! Exactly 100 years after his death, Mark Twain's autobiography is finally available. In this first of three volumes, the great Samuel Clemens tells his most epic tale of all: the frank and fascinating story of his remarkable... (read more)

List Price $45.00
Your price: $14.95
Used - Hardcover

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Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems
Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems
by Camille Paglia
Staff Pick
Camille Paglia is a top-notch analyst, and she'll introduce you to poems, poets, and ideas for how to see the written word in new and exciting ways.... (read more)

List Price $20.00
Your price: $13.95
Used - Hardcover

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Abc of Reading (10 Edition)
Abc of Reading (10 Edition)
by Ezra Pound
Staff Pick
Welcome to Ezuversity. No tuition and just this one textbook. "ABC or gradus ad Parnassum, for those who like to learn."... (read more)

List Price $14.95
Your price: $8.00
Used - Trade Paper

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The Alice behind Wonderland
The Alice behind Wonderland
by Simon Winchester
Staff Pick
Simon Winchester makes everything within his intense gaze come amazingly alive. Here, he turns his attention to Charles Dodgson (better knows as Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame). Winchester looks at the critical period in Dodgson's life in... (read more)

List Price $16.95
Your price: $6.98
Sale - Hardcover

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Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
by David Shields
Staff Pick
In Reality Hunger, Shields draws from classic and contemporary sources — artists, writers, philosophers, and more — to present a collage of ideas that is erudite and provocative. It's a book of intentional plagiarism that casts new light on ideas of... (read more)

List Price $24.95
Your price: $12.95
Used - Hardcover

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Taz the Temporary Autonomous Zone 2ND Edition
Taz the Temporary Autonomous Zone 2ND Edition
by Hakim Bey
Staff Pick
"Since the WTO, anarchism is once again a household word. This book introduced a whole new generation to the enticements of the anarchist lifestyle when it was released in the early 90's. Still a password for acceptance in many circles, it is an... (read more)

List Price $11.95
Your price: $8.00
Used - Trade Paper

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The Language of Inquiry
The Language of Inquiry
by Lyn Hejinian
Staff Pick
Lyn Hejinian is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary American poetry. Living and writing in the Bay Area for most of her life, she is a professor, translator, poet, etc. Recently she has worked with musician John Zorn on a cross-media... (read more)

List Price $32.95
Your price: $25.00
Used - Trade Paper

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Bookclub-In-A-Box Discusses the Novel the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Bookclub-In-A-Box Discusses the Novel the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
by Marilyn Herbert
Staff Pick
By the time The Lovely Bones landed on bookstore shelves it had become the most highly anticipated book of the season. Then came the astonishingly enthusiastic critical response. Within two months, a million copies were in print. Still, readers... (read more)

Your price: $18.75
New - Trade Paper

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The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death
The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death
by David Shields and Bradford Morrow
Staff Pick
You are going to die. If that incontrovertible fact bums you out, you may want to read The Inevitable, which contains 20 essays about death that are alternately funny, sad, enlightening, and fascinating. The book doesn't pretend to have the the answers... (read more)

List Price $17.95
Your price: $8.98
Sale - Trade Paper

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The Art of the Sonnet
The Art of the Sonnet
by Stephen Burt and David Mikics
Staff Pick
You can read this book for its remarkable selection from 450 years of English-language sonnets, or delve into the accompanying essays through which Burt and Mikics shed light on why — and how — the sonnet has remained one of the longest-lived verse... (read more)

List Price $35.00
Your price: $17.95
Used - Hardcover

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