It is fitting that the title of a book that examines the suicide motif in Shakespeare’s works is inspired by Act 4 Scene XV of Shakespeare’s tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. In this scene, Mark Antony has died in Cleopatra’s arms... Read More

“That is so last century!” Today’s readers and teachers may exclaim as they begin The Catcher in the Rye, the 1951 classic by J. D. Salinger. Fortunately, Peter G. Beidler has decoded the cultural information that packs the novel.... Read More

“H.D.,” in this context, stands not for high-definition television, but for Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961); that is, H.D. the poet, who was associated with Imagism, a literary movement often said to espouse crisp visual objectivity.... Read More

The recently established International Thriller Writers organization decided to compile a list of 100 thrillers that have a made an impact on literature; the result is this dynamic anthology of essays by Steve Berry, Heather Graham,... Read More

Ten plays. Ten decades. This is August Wilson’s legacy. Wilson, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, is considered the greatest American playwright of the last half of the twentieth century. In August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century... Read More

In January 2009, the National Endowment for the Arts issued a report titled Reading on the Rise. Jim Collins explores the milieu that enabled this rise in "Bring on the Books for Everybody". But this monograph isn’t a dry report.... Read More

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Canadian poet and literary critic Kenneth Sherman asked himself what the response of literature to such traumatizing events should be. For guidance, he turned to writers who had... Read More

John Waterfield admits to two enduring passions: the works of Shakespeare and the Catholic faith. In his view, a close reading of the former reveals a corresponding adherence to the latter. Shakespeare, he contends, “is no less a... Read More