This book by Cleanth Brooks is a classic ‘must read’ study in the criticism of poetry for reasons adequately given here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_Wrought_Urn:_Studies_in_the_Structure_of_Poetry 324 pages in Mariner Books paperback edition. ISBN 978-0156957052
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“Fiction and The Reading Public” provoked fierce controversy when first published in 1932, and it has since come to be recognised as a classic in its field. In her fascinating study, Q D Leavis (http://mypages.surrey.ac.uk/eds1cj/qd-leavis-life-and-work.htm#lifeandwork) investigates what has happened to the public taste in the last three centuries and what effect this has had on
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Prolific crime writer and film producer Peter James (http://www.peterjames.com/, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_James_(writer)) has been publishing novels since 1981. He has been translated into 36 languages. His 2013 offering is Dead Man’s Time (The ninth book in the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series). The summary goes as follows: A vicious robbery at a secluded Brighton mansion leaves its elderly
Family history searching is a highly popular pursuit these days. If you’re lucky you might get back two or three hundred years picking out your ancestors. What of the whole human family, though? How far do we go back as Homo Sapiens? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens) Cyril Aydon presents the story in 400 pages covering 150,000 years. From
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You can imagine the scene. They’ve gone up to the top of Tinto Hill on an evening full of expectation. Thrilling expectation, because that night is going to be The End of The World. The chosen ones (among whom they are counted in the number) are to be taken to a heavenly place in a
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Lesley Pearse (http://www.lesleypearse.com/about-lesley) tells us that her life has had more ups and downs than a bucket in a well. This has equipped her to write gripping fiction with characters that it is impossible not to care about or forget. The author loves her laburnum and is well read in history. The Daily Mail endorses this novel
The physical and natural sciences investigate how the world is, its contents and relations between them. Why, though, is there anything rather than just nothing? This is a perenniel question and many thinkers cite this fact to suggest that it is really unanswerable. It may be able to be framed grammatically, yet could still be
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According to Dilly Court’s own website (http://www.dillycourt.com/about.aspx) she has been heavily influenced by Enid Blyton. She now lives in Dorset where her hobbies include knitting. In this gripping new novel of 2013 which penetrates to the heart of the human condition with all its random complexities, we meet eight-year-old Sarah Scrase and her widowed mother
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In August 1930 the 36 last remaining inhabitants of St. Kilda (a tiny archipelago 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland) left for the mainland, bringing the end to an extraordinary way of life that may have persisted for 2000 years in near total isolation. This was the remotest community in Britain and its way of life
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Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) was a colossus of a thinker bestriding the twentieth century. His unique intellectual contribution was the concept of value-pluralism. Allow the mellifluous tones of John Gray to give you a tour round Berlin’s mind, and in particular his ideas about agonistic liberalism. 240 pages in Princeton University Press paperback edition. ISBN 978-0691157429
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Do you know anyone who is exhausted by work and permanently under stress? Perhaps that person takes a smartphone and tablet to a wi-fi hotspot on the beach whilst on holiday? Work, seemingly, has become an end in itself and we all worship at the altar of Efficiency, praise be upon its name. All our
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Why do people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded? Robert L. Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Park) has some ideas. He covers here in 2008, among other topics, parapsychology, homeopathy, acupuncture, souls, ‘intelligent design’, the power of prayer, reincarnation and astral projections. Park’s previous debunk ‘Voodoo Science’ (2000, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Voodoo-Science-Road-Foolishness-Fraud/dp/0198507453/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1375693564&sr=1-1) is also well worth a read. 240
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Our very own David Hume is revered by many professional philosophers as the greatest of their number ever to write in English. His work is almost endlessly rich and stimulating to deep thought. The result is that there has sprung up a vast industry of publication on every single nuance that can be discerned from
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A cheeky blend of impish pleasure and serious intent, Lust (2004) rescues this life-giving impulse from the revulsion of the dessicated desert fathers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers), the smug detachment of ascetics, and Puritans the world over. What is lust? Even though our language makes it clear that it can have broader applications, lust is often associated with sexual
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Danielle Steele is one of those people who has had such a busy life one can’t figure out where all the time came from to cram it all in. Another I often think of in this light is Melvyn Bragg. Steele (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danielle_Steele) is now 65 years old and the world’s best selling author, having sold
