A raucous tour through the world of Mr. Darcy imitations, tailored gowns, and tipsy ballroom dancingThe son of a devoted Jane Austen scholar, Ted Scheinman spent his childhood summers eating Yorkshire pudding, singing in an Anglican choir, and watching Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy. Determined to leave his mother's world behind, he nonetheless found himself in grad school organizing the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp, a weekend-long event that si...

Reminiscent of William Styron’s Darkness Visible but with an appealing vein of humor, a magnificently written memoir of riding the depression roller coaster, choosing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and finding the path to happiness—with fascinating side-journeys into the nature of identity and memory.**Growing up in a hyper-educated, artistic, eccentric family, Ted Scheinman, the son of a medical doctor and an English professor, spent much of his precoc...

A raucous audiobook tour through the world of Mr. Darcy imitations, tailored gowns, and tipsy ballroom dancingThe son of a devoted Jane Austen scholar, Ted Scheinman spent his childhood summers eating Yorkshire pudding, singing in an Anglican choir, and watching Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy. Determined to leave his mother’s world behind, he nonetheless found himself in grad school organizing the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp, a weekend-long ev...

Now a major motion film!At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised.In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators...

You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major Pettigrew is one of the most indelible characters in contemporary fiction, and from the very fi...

Coming out of an unhappy relationship and a stint at an artist colony, Charlotte, a writer, takes a job teaching at a private ESL college. There she befriends Renata—audacious, sexy, and as changeable as Proteus. “I have a story for you,” Renata says to her one day over lunch. She doesn’t elaborate further, but Charlotte soon discovers that she has found in Renata an unexpectedly passionate and compelling subject.“Caroline Adderson is such a graceful and intelligent writer that the...

Octavia Butler's premature and sudden death in 2006 has been very widely lamented, unhappily confirming her influence as a vital African-American and female pioneer in SF. Xenogenesis (retitled Lilith's Brood in 2000) is one of Butler's most important works, and comprises the novels Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), and Imago (1989). The Notes cover Octavia Butler's life and work; the background and structure of the trilogy; (Black) SF in relation to race and gender; the tradition of dy...

The Story of a Whim by Grace Livingston Hill“If a young man spells his name 'Christie,' he cannot blame fate when a pretty girl writes him an affectionate letter—under the impression that she is corresponding with a girl of her own age. To Christie Bailey, lonely and discouraged, it was a great temptation. He answered in the character of a lonely, freckled, 'spinster' of twenty-eight. Perhaps it was the clear trusting eyes in the photograph she sent him—anyway Chri...

Sarah Matthews has everything in the world a woman could wish for: a loving husband; two beautiful children; a small business which she runs together with her sister-in-law; and even her own top of the range car.   Why then does she keep having recurring nightmares? Over a friendly lunch with her ex-lady boss, seeds of doubt and discontent begin to gnaw at her, and the realization dawns that she is no longer free to live a life of her own as she would wish. When offered...

Carefully melding theory with close readings of texts, the contributors to Ambiguous Discourse explore the role of gender in the struggle for narrative control of specific works by British writers Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, and Mina Loy. This collection of twelve essays is the first book devoted to feminist narratology — the combination of feminist theory with the study of the structures that underpin all narratives. Until recen...

Margaret Atwood is an internationally renowned, highly versatile author whose work creatively explores what it means to be human through genres ranging from feminist fable to science fiction and Gothic romance.In this timely new study, Gina Wisker reassesses Atwood's entire fictional output to date, providing both original analysis and a lively overview of the criticism surrounding her work. 'Margaret Atwood: An Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction':• covers all of ...

Partners in Wonder revolutionizes our knowledge of women and early science fiction. Contrary to accepted interpretations, women fans and writers were a welcome and influential part of pulp science fiction from the birth of the genre. Davin finds that at least 203 female authors, under their own female names, published over a thousand stories in science fiction magazines between 1926 and 1965. This work explores the distinctly different form of science fiction that females produced-one that...