A collection of sixty classic and contemporary essays, stories, lists, poems, quotations, and cartoons that celebrates the joys of reading, the feeling of spending hours browsing through a bookstore, and the people for whom buying books is a necessity. Booklovers will find themselves in good company within the pages of A Passion for Books, beginning with science-fiction great Ray Bradbury's foreword and throughout contributions like-- Umberto Eco's How to Justify a Private Library, dealing with the question everyone with a sizable library is inevitably asked: "Have you read all these books?"; Gustave Flaubert's Bibliomania, the tale of a book collector so obsessed with owning a book that he is willing to kill to possess it; and Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, in which she shares her optimistic view on the role of reading and the future of books in the computer age. Interspersed throughout are entertaining lists--Ten Bestselling Books Rejected by Publishers Twenty Times or More, Norman Mailer's Ten Favorite American Novels and many more-- plus select writings on bookstores, book clubs, cartoons about books and a specially prepared "bibliobibliography" of books about books. Whether you consider yourself a bibliomaniac or just someone who enjoys reading, A Passion for Books will provide you with a lifetime's worth of entertaining, informative, and pleasurable reading on your favorite subject--the love of books.

This volume, prompted by the publication in 1999 of Moya Longstaffe's remarkable study, Metamorphoses of Passion and the Heroic in French Literature: Corneille, Stendhal, Claudel, further investigates and analyses the multiple appearances of Passion and Heroism in literature. It pursues the exploration of these themes in a variety of cultures (English, French, German, Spanish), genres, and critical approaches. In addition, the chronological span represented is extremely wide. Contributions range from La Fontaine, Molière and Voltaire to Rimbaud and Camus; from Baudelaire to Beckett; from Wagner to Goytisolo. This very diversity gives necessary context, providing scope for reflection and analysis. Although passion seems timeless, can heroism have any real meaning - apart from an individual and existential one - in our postmodern age? Has a notion at the centre of European culture for so many centuries really disappeared from our intellectual and cultural universe? This volume will be of interest to all students of literature, whatever their critical or linguistic allegiance, since it focuses on the varying manifestations of two vital ingredients of all societies and cultures.

Leading writers and critics, including Margaret Drabble, Alan Sillitoe and Ferdinand Mount, share their passion for books and the joys of reading in an inspiring collection of essays and writings. A Passion for Books is both a celebration of the value and importance of reading and a spirited defence against the many gloomy voices in our so-called electronic age who say the book will soon be obsolete. This book, itself a joy to read, is written for anyone who cares at all about the past and future of books and reading.

A Passion for the True and Just reveals the moral underpinnings of Felix and Lucy Kramer Cohen and their important contribution to the Indian New Deal. Alice Beck Kehoe illuminates Felix Cohen's uncompromising commitment to the “true and the just,” rooted in his Jewish intellectual and moral heritage, and Social Democrat principles, that changed American legal philosophy.

Presents a guide for aspiring writers on all aspects of getting published, including writing the query letter, getting an agent, signing contracts, working with publishers, assisting in prepub publicity and marketing, and doing book tours.

The culture that infiltrates our lives can provoke a range of feelings and afflictions – culture can move you, get under your skin and stir up your emotions. Ben Highmore uses these feelings, or 'passions', to explore the culture that surrounds us and uses it as a basis to introduce and explain the key ideas, debates and theories that are central to cultural studies. Impressively accessible and packed with absorbing examples from everyday life, this compact book is the ideal entry-point into cultural studies. The chapters examine problematic and complex issues that are core to cultural studies, looking at the experience of migration, the nature of the media, the lure of commodities, the world of taste and the culture of love. Cleverly written in a way that's easy to follow and enjoyable to read, the text gives a sense of the discipline as a way of thinking rather than an amalgamation of theories, and whets the appetite of all those interested in cultural studies. Whether you're a student who's new to the field, or a seasoned scholar seeking a fresh idea about what cultural studies can do, this clear and concise text encourages you to become truly passionate about cultural studies.