The essential guide to looking at literature with your own two eyes. What students know about Shakespeare, Orwell, Dickens, and Twain is primarily what their instructors tell them. Here’s a book that teaches the students how to move on to the next level—evaluate and read critically on their own, trust their own opinions, develop original ideas, analyze characters, and find a deeper appreciation for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more. • Ideal companion for college students and accessible for the casual reader as well. • Covers fiction, poetry, narrative nonfiction, biographies and memoirs, essays and editorials, and newspapers, magazines, and journals. • Features examples from published writing. • Includes a reading list and a glossary of literary terms.

From Plato to Freud to ecocriticism, the book illustrates dozens of stimulating-and sometimes notoriously complex-perspectives for approaching literature and film. The book offers authoritative, clear, and easy-to-follow explanations of theories that range from established classics to the controversies of current theory. Each chapter offers a conversational, step-by-step explanation of a single theory, critic, or issue, accompanied by concrete examples for applying the concepts and engaging suggestions for related literary readings. Following a section on the foundations of literary theory, the book is organized thematically, with an eye to the best way to develop a real, working understanding of the various theories. Cross-references are particularly important, since it's through the interaction of examples that readers most effectively advance from basic topics and arguments to some of the more specialized and complicated issues. Each chapter is designed to tell a complete story, yet also to reach out to other chapters for development and debate. Literary theorists are hardly unified in their views, and this book reflects the various traditions, agreements, influences, and squabbles that are a part of the field. Special features include hundreds of references to and quotations from novels, stories, plays, poems, movies, and other media. Online resources could also include video and music clips, as well as high-quality examples of visual art mentioned in the book. The book also includes periodic "running" references to selected key titles (such as Frankenstein) in order to illustrate the effect of different theories on a single work.

Gain some insight into the game of life... Game Theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It is based on the idea that everyone acts competitively and in his own best interest. With the help of mathematical models, it is possible to anticipate the actions of others in nearly all life's enterprises. This book includes down-to-earth examples and solutions, as well as charts and illustrations designed to help teach the concept. In The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Game Theory, Dr. Edward C. Rosenthal makes it easy to understand game theory with insights into: • The history of the discipline made popular by John Nash, the mathematician dramatized in the film A Beautiful Mind • The role of social behavior and psychology in this amazing discipline • How important game theory has become in our society and why

Get it while you can ... Complex, ever-changing, and controversial, the future of our current system of Social Security and Medicare is uncertain. This indispensable guide explains the proposed changes and current status of these important social programs. Completely revised to incorporate changes to compensation scales and survivor benefits, and with an expanded section on Medicare and the new drug programs, this book is the most up-to-date overview of Social Security and Medicare currently available. * Revised and updated with the latest 2006 statistics on income scales and cost of living; such Social Security Benefits as survivor benefits and disability payments; tax codes; and more * Completely new chapters on Medicare, the Medicare Drug Programs, and the current political climate and proposed changes * Completely revised section on resources

An objective, comprehensive, and easy-to-read reference to the 50 most significant conflicts around the world. For those who want to learn why there is so much hate in the world, and why much of it seems to be directed at the United States.