What are we to make of the Victorians’ fascination with collecting? What effect did their encounters with the curious, exotic and downright odd have on Victorian writers and their works? The essays in this collection take up these questions by examining the phenomenon of bric-Ã -brac in Victorian literature. The contributors to Literary Bric-Ã -Brac and the Victorians: From Commodities to Oddities explore sites of unusual concurrence (including museums, the home, art galleries, private col...

Brought to you by Penguin.April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change.In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting: the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease.A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found bef...

This book, drawn from the practical experience of the European Assess Inquiry in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (ASSIST-ME) project, aims to support researchers, teacher educators and teachers in navigating the complex nature of formative assessment.It delves into how formative assessment methods may adapt different features within STEM classroom practices and how formative and summative assessment could be coordinated. The book illustrates how ideas about inquiry an...

Discover an accessible, five-step framework for writing a rule of life with award-winning author Jen Pollock Michel, who transforms this ancient practice into a grounded way of living faithfully in a distracted world.A rule of life isn't a rigid list of spiritual disciplines that makes you feel guilty when you fail. It's a grounded way of living faithfully in the chaotic world we inhabit.Drawing from years of leading spiritual formation workshops, Jen Pollo...

Discover an accessible, five-step framework for writing a rule of life with award-winning author Jen Pollock Michel, who transforms this ancient practice into a grounded way of living faithfully in a distracted world.A rule of life isn't a rigid list of spiritual disciplines that makes you feel guilty when you fail. It's a grounded way of living faithfully in the chaotic world we inhabit.Drawing from years of leading spiritual formation workshops, Jen Pollo...

'Luminous' The Times'Beautiful’ Caught by the RiverBringing together contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape, this inspiring collection takes us from walking to wild swimming, from red deer to pigeons and wasps, from remote islands to back gardens, through prose, poetry and photography.Edited and introduced by Kathleen Jamie, and with contributions from Amy Liptrot, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy, Malac...

Innovation shapes wars, and twelve studies by former faculty members of West Point’s United States Military Academy examine specific cases of past and present military innovation. The complex, competitive, and dynamic environment that defines war drives combatants to seek solutions to potentially lethal problems. As some solutions prove effective, gain traction, and win emulation, they follow a path of innovation. The chapters address a broad array of innovations, including in weapon techn...

From one of the country's most eminent reviewers and academics, a delightfully sceptical and devastatingly intelligent assessment of the true value of art.

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap?Shedding new light on novels by Thack...

Written by one of the world’s leading literary theorists, this book provides a wide-ranging, accessible and humorous introduction to the English novel from Daniel Defoe to the present day.Covers the works of major authors, including Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, the Brontës, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce.

Language of Fiction was the first book of criticism by the renowned novelist and critic David Lodge. His uniquely informed perspective - he was already the author of three successful novels at the time of its first publication in 1966 - and lucid exposition meant that the work proved a landmark of literary criticism, not least because it succeeded

Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, ...