"A transporting and illuminating voyage around the globe, through classic and modern literary works that are in conversation with one another and with the world around them. Inspired by Jules Verne's hero Phileas Fogg, David Damrosch, chair of Harvard University's department of comparative literature and founder of Harvard's Institute for World Literature, set out to counter a pandemic's restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books...

"A delightful romp through the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him became an act of blasphemy... and who the Bard might really be"-- Provided by publisher.

"Columbia professor and cultural historian Jeremy Dauber takes readers to the startling origins of the horror genre in the United States, from the lingering influence of the European Gothic to the enslaved insurrection tales and the apocryphal chronicles of colonial settlers kidnapped by Native Americans"-- Provided by publisher.

"From the award-winning biographer of Chaucer, the story of his most popular and scandalous character, from the Middle Ages to #MeToo Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognizably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers-from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or matched...

Christian Wiman braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work.-- Provided by publisher.

USA Today Bestseller

"Sensitive, searingly intelligent, and beautifully written." —Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

"This is—for real—a masterwork, one I will return to over and over." —Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year

In this intimate and riveting memoir, Best American Essayist Nicole Graev Lipson breaks...

"Geek-culture expert Ryan Britt takes us behind the pages and scenes of the science-fiction phenomenon Dune, charting the series' life from cult sci-fi novels to some of the most visionary movies of all time"-- Provided by publisher.

"A pastor and teacher demonstrates how Black experience, as shown in the literature of great African American writers, can guide us all toward sharper theological thinking and more faithful living"-- Provided by publisher.

"Contagiously curious essays on reading, art, and the life of the mind from the acclaimed author of The Unreality of Memory"-- Provided by publisher.

Conflict is an inevitable part of life, according to this ancient Chinese classic of strategy, but everything necessary to deal with conflict wisely, honorably, victoriously, is already present within us. Compiled more than two thousand years ago by a mysterious warrior-philosopher, The Art of War is still perhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy in the world, as eagerly studied in Asia by modern politicians and executives...