The tellers of Greek myths -- historically men -- have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil -- like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world's suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was...

"Plants, borders, and various horticultural paraphernalia make surprisingly frequent appearances in mystery plots. In this wide-ranging survey of classic and contemporary murder fiction, Marta looks at the detectives, motives, methods, opportunities, and writers that have used the garden as their point of departure. The result is a diverting and eye-opening study that deepens our appreciation of the great crime fiction writers while illuminating the...

"In Bookends, Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon offers a compilation of pieces about literature--age-old classics as well as his own--that presents a unique look into his literary origins and influences, the books that shaped his taste and formed his ideas about writing and reading. Chabon asks why anyone would write an introduction, or for that matter, read one. His own daughter Rose prefers to skip them. Chabon's answer is simple and...

"Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Humanities Medal, presents a thrilling, radiant interpretation of the first book of the Bible"-- Provided by publisher.

"Prepare to swoon, ugly cry, laugh, and fall in love with this officially licensed exploration of the impact and legacy of one of film's most beloved genres from Turner Classic Movies: the rom-com. Spanning decades of romantic comedies-from movies of the 1930s such as It Happened One Night and the rom-com craze of the '80s and '90s including When Harry Met Sally... all the way to contemporary hits like Crazy Rich Asians, and everything in between-Falling...

Music Is History combines Questlove's deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years.

"A nuanced, passionate exploration of the life and work of one of the most misunderstood writers of the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination--the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne--a superfan and scholar--radically reimagines the last years of Plath's life, confronts her suicide...

"It was at the age of three, sitting in the front seat of her father's car, that Alice Randall began to write her first country song: 'Daddy, don't go in that B-A-R.' To Randall, country music is a beating heart, shared communally with her family alive and gone, and the origin of a singular distinction she holds in American music history: the first Black woman to cowrite a #1 country hit, Trisha Yearwood's 'XXX's and OOO's.' Randall found inspiration...

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...

A Room of One's Own is a curious essay. Presented originally as two speeches to the Arts Society at Newham in 1928, the work is remarkable for its distinctive tone, for Woolf's witty and deceptively casual style, and for her decision largely eschew abstract arguments in favor of narrative, anecdote and the guidance of a strong, abiding first person narrator. She also, refreshingly, avoids doctrine and bombast, instead infusing her arguments with...