#1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon has captivated millions of readers with her critically acclaimed Outlander novels, the inspiration for the Starz original series. From the moment Claire Randall stepped through a standing stone circle and was thrown back in time to the year 1743-and into a world that threatens life, limb, loyalty, heart, soul, and everything else Claire has-readers have been hungry to know everything about this world and its inhabitants, particularly a Scottish soldier named Jamie Fraser. In this beautifully illustrated compendium of all things Outlandish, Gabaldon covers the first four novels of the main series, including: - full synopses of Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, and Drums of Autumn - a complete listing of the characters (fictional and historical) in the first four novels in the series, as well as family trees and genealogical notes - a comprehensive glossary and pronunciation guide to Gaelic terms and usage - The Gabaldon Theory of Time Travel, explained - frequently asked questions to the author and her (sometimes surprising) answers - an annotated bibliography - essays about medicine and magic in the eighteenth century, researching historical fiction, creating characters, and more - professionally cast horoscopes for Jamie and Claire - the making of the TV series: how we got there from here, and what happened next (including "My Brief Career as a TV Actor") - behind-the-scenes photos from the Outlander TV series set For anyone who wants to spend more time with the Outlander characters and the world they inhabit, Diana Gabaldon here opens a door through the standing stones and offers a guided tour of what lies within.

Distinguished man of letters Ilan Stavans believes Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha "invented modern consciousness." In these lectures, Stavans explores the work's impact within Renaissance Spain and discusses Cervantes' career as a soldier, tax collector, and failed playwright. Stavans also focuses on the baroque style and the way Spain has built its national identity around Don Quixote. With a wealth of insight, these enlightening lectures are invaluable both for those already passionate about Cervantes' masterpiece and for those only about to discover its wonders.

From the longest-running, most influential book review in America, here is its best, funniest, strangest, and most memorable coverage over the past 125 years. Since its first issue on October 10, 1896, The New York Times Book Review has brought the world of ideas to the reading public. It is the publication where authors have been made, and where readers first encountered the classics that have enriched their lives. Now the editors have curated the Book Review 's dynamic 125-year history, which is essentially the story of modern American letters. Brimming with remarkable reportage, this book collects interesting reviews, never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, and spicy letter exchanges. Here are the first takes on novels we now consider masterpieces, including a long-forgotten pan of Anne of Green Gables and a rave of Mrs. Dalloway , along with reviews and essays by Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more. Listeners will discover how literary tastes have shifted through the years-and how the Book Review 's coverage has shaped so much of what we read today.

An authoritative, wide-ranging, and incredibly timely history of 1984-its literary sources, its composition by Orwell, its deep and lasting effect on the Cold War, and its vast influence throughout world culture at every level, from high to pop. 1984 isn't just a novel; it's a key to understanding the modern world. George Orwell's final work is a treasure chest of ideas and memes-Big Brother, the Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, 2+2=5-that gain potency with every year. Particularly in 2016, when the election of Donald Trump made it a bestseller ("Ministry of Alternative Facts," anyone'). Its influence has morphed endlessly into novels (The Handmaid's Tale), films (Brazil), television shows (V for Vendetta), rock albums (Diamond Dogs), commercials (Apple), even reality TV (Big Brother). The Ministry of Truth is the first book that fully examines the epochal and cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Great Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that far from subsiding, have only grown over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains history.

In The Man Who Would Be Sherlock, a world-famous biographer reveals the strange relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's real life and that of Sherlock Holmes.
Though best known for the fictional cases of his creation Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle was involved in dozens of real life cases, solving many and zealously campaigning for justice in all. Stanford thoroughly and convincingly makes the case that the details of the many events Doyle was involved in, and caricatures of those involved, would provide Conan Doyle the fodder for many of the adventures of the violin-playing detective. 
There can be few (if any) literary creations who have found such a consistent yet evolving independent life as Holmes. He is a paradigm that can be endlessly changed yet always maintains an underlying consistent identity, both drug addict and perfect example of the analytic mind, and as Christopher Sandford demonstrates so clearly, in many of these respects, he mirrors his creator.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2019. Wordsworth and Coleridge as you've never seen them before in this new book by Adam Nicolson, brimming with poetry, art and nature writing. Proof that poetry can change the world. It is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and 'Kubla Khan', as well as Coleridge's unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth's revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of 'Tintern Abbey', his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. Bestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset. To a degree never shown before, The Making of Poetry explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. The poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.

In 1941, Steinbeck and his close friend Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist, rented a ship and set about exploring the Gulf of California. The scientific data collected, along with Steinbeck's log of the journey, were detailed in the work Sea of Cortez. Ten years later, the log was published on its own, chock-full of elegantly described marine life and often-amusing anecdotes about the adventure.

Progressions presents another batch of erudite and entertaining essays on a variety of topics covering Saskatchewan's literary development, as well as tributes to some of the major contributors to that history, and a pictorial glimpse into the past.

Writers stopped using typewriters, and even moved beyond the Kaypro computer box for their compositions. The Saskatchewan School of the Arts was shut down, ending the Fort San writing experience. But the Sage Hill Writing Experience quickly rose to replace it. Saskatchewan literary presses really found their feet and published important and lasting books. A wave of new writers joined the founders of the province's literary tradition. Responding to this growth in the community, the Saskatchewan Book Awards,and the Saskatchewan Festival of Words in Moose Jaw came into being. The Saskatchewan writing community stormed out of the 20th Century in a frenzy of creativity and accomplishment.

Essay contributors to Volume 2 include Dave Margoshes, Jeanette Lynes, Aritha Van Herk, Alison Calder and seven more. The eleven essays include such topics as "To House or House Not: The New Saskatchewan Women Poets", "Contemporary Nature Writing in Saskatchewan", "Fort San/Sage Hill" and "Brave and Foolish Nonconformists". In addition, literary tributes are offered for: Caroline Heath, Pat Krause, Martha Blum and Max Braithwaite.

A valuable addition to any bibliophile's collection! The rich history of a province's literature, in the essays of well-known writers from across the Prairie and Canadian literary landscapes. Saskatchewan's literary history is both colourful and complex. It is also mature enough to deserve a critical investigation of its roots and origins, its salient features and its prominent players. This collection of scholarly essays, conceptualized and compiled by well-known Saskatchewan novelist,essayist and scholar David Carpenter, examines the Saskatchewan literary scene, from its early Aboriginal storytellers on through to the decades to the burgeoning 1970s. The dozen essays, preceded by a David Carpenter introduction, include such topics as "Our New Storytellers: Cree Literature in Saskatchewan"; "The Literary Construction of Saskatchewan before 1905: Narratives of Trade, Rebellion and Settlement" and "The New Generation: The Seventies Remembered." Also included are special topics, among them n "Playwriting in Saskatchewan"; "Feral Muse, Angelic Muse n The Poetry of Anne Szumigalski", and tribute pieces to John V. Hicks, R.D. Symons, Terrence Heath and Alex Karras. Contributing scholars include the likes of: Kristina Fagan, Jenny Kerber, Susan Gingell, Ken Mitchell and Martin Winquist.