James Wood’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wood_(critic)) call for a comedic moral seriousness in fiction is handsomely reviewed here http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/22/featuresreviews.guardianreview6   The depth and brilliance of Wood’s insights left me amazed, and I hope they will have the same effect on you. The Irresponsible Self  was first published in 2004. Check if this title is in stock at your local library […]

In an age when relativism of judgement is hardly ever questioned it’s a rare experience to go back to a confident assertion that there is such a thing as literary taste, and that this can be cultivated. Arnold Bennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bennett) offers a literary canon here. First published 1909. Does it match your expectations? Check if this title

A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Auerbach) Mimesis (originally published in 1946) still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. Auerbach’s aim

The title is a reference to a fragment attributed to the Greek poet Archilocus: πόλλ’ οἶδ’ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ’ ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα (“the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”). In Erasmus Rotterdamus’s Adagia from 1500, the expression is recorded as Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum. The fable of The Fox and the Cat embodies the same idea.