Why We Read Fiction

Download Why We Read Fiction full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Why We Read Fiction ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Why We Read Fiction

Author : Lisa Zunshine
Publisher : Ohio State University Press
ISBN 13 : 0814210287
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (142 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Why We Read Fiction by : Lisa Zunshine

Download or read book Why We Read Fiction written by Lisa Zunshine and published by Ohio State University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why We Read Fiction offers a lucid overview of the most exciting area of research in contemporary cognitive psychology known as "Theory of Mind" and discusses its implications for literary studies. It covers a broad range of fictional narratives, from Richardson s Clarissa, Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment, and Austen s Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett s The Maltese Falcon. Zunshine's surprising new interpretations of well-known literary texts and popular cultural representations constantly prod her readers to rethink their own interest in fictional narrative. Written for a general audience, this study provides a jargon-free introduction to the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field known as cognitive approaches to literature and culture.

The Self-Help Compulsion

Author : Beth Blum
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231551088
Total Pages : 507 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Self-Help Compulsion by : Beth Blum

Download or read book The Self-Help Compulsion written by Beth Blum and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Samuel Beckett as a guru for business executives? James Joyce as a guide to living a good life? The notion of notoriously experimental authors sharing a shelf with self-help books might seem far-fetched, yet a hidden history of rivalry, influence, and imitation links these two worlds. In The Self-Help Compulsion, Beth Blum reveals the profound entanglement of modern literature and commercial advice from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Blum explores popular reading practices in which people turn to literature in search of practical advice alongside modern writers’ rebukes of such instrumental purposes. As literary authors positioned themselves in opposition to people like Samuel Smiles and Dale Carnegie, readers turned to self-help for the promises of mobility, agency, and practical use that serious literature was reluctant to supply. Blum unearths a series of unlikely cases of the love-hate relationship between serious fiction and commercial advice, from Gustave Flaubert’s mockery of early DIY culture to Dear Abby’s cutting diagnoses of Nathanael West and from Virginia Woolf’s ambivalent polemics against self-improvement to the ways that contemporary global authors such as Mohsin Hamid and Tash Aw explicitly draw on the self-help genre. She also traces the self-help industry’s tendency to popularize, quote, and adapt literary wisdom and considers what it might have to teach today’s university. Offering a new history of self-help’s origins, appeal, and cultural and literary import around the world, this book reveals that self-help’s most valuable secrets are not about getting rich or winning friends but about how and why people read.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies

Author : Lisa Zunshine
Publisher : Oxford Handbooks
ISBN 13 : 0199978069
Total Pages : 681 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies by : Lisa Zunshine

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies written by Lisa Zunshine and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2015 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title considers how the architecture that enables human cognitive processing interacts with cultural and historical contexts. Organised into five parts (Narrative, History, and Imagination; Emotions and Empathy; The New Unconscious; Empirical and Qualitative Studies of Literature; and Cognitive Theory and Literary Experience), the volume considers case studies from a wide range of historical periods and national literary traditions.

My Life with Bob

Author : Pamela Paul
Publisher : Henry Holt
ISBN 13 : 1627796312
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (277 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis My Life with Bob by : Pamela Paul

Download or read book My Life with Bob written by Pamela Paul and published by Henry Holt. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For twenty-eight years, Pamela Paul has been keeping a diary that records the books she reads, rather than the life she leads. Or does it? Over time, it's become clear that this Book of Books, or Bob, as she calls him, tells a much bigger story. For Paul, as for many readers, books reflect her inner life--her fantasies and hopes, her dreams and ideas. And her life, in turn, influences which books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, diversion or self-reflection, information or entertainment. My Life with Bob isn't about what's in those books; it's about the relationship between books and readers"--

Why Women Read Fiction

Author : Helen Taylor
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192562673
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Why Women Read Fiction by : Helen Taylor

Download or read book Why Women Read Fiction written by Helen Taylor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ian McEwan once said, 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives. Female readers are key to the future of fiction and—as parents, teachers, and librarians—the glue for a literate society. Women treasure the chance to read alone, but have also gregariously shared reading experiences and memories with mothers, daughters, grandchildren, and female friends. For so many, reading novels and short stories enables them to escape and to spread their wings intellectually and emotionally. This book, written by an experienced teacher, scholar of women's writing, and literature festival director, draws on over 500 interviews with and questionnaires from women readers and writers. It describes how, where, and when British women read fiction, and examines why stories and writers influence the way female readers understand and shape their own life stories. Taylor explores why women are the main buyers and readers of fiction, members of book clubs, attendees at literary festivals, and organisers of days out to fictional sites and writers' homes. The book analyses the special appeal and changing readership of the genres of romance, erotica, and crime. It also illuminates the reasons for British women's abiding love of two favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Taylor offers a cornucopia of witty and wise women's voices, of both readers themselves and also writers such as Hilary Mantel, Helen Dunmore, Katie Fforde, and Sarah Dunant. The book helps us understand why—in Jackie Kay's words—'our lives are mapped by books.'

Such Stuff as Dreams

Author : Keith Oatley
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119973538
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (199 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Such Stuff as Dreams by : Keith Oatley

Download or read book Such Stuff as Dreams written by Keith Oatley and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction explores how fiction works in the brains and imagination of both readers and writers. Demonstrates how reading fiction can contribute to a greater understanding of, and the ability to change, ourselves Informed by the latest psychological research which focuses on, for example, how identification with fictional characters occurs, and how literature can improve social abilities Explores traditional aspects of fiction, including character, plot, setting, and theme, as well as a number of classic techniques, such as metaphor, metonymy, defamiliarization, and cues Includes extensive end-notes, which ground the work in psychological studies Features excerpts from fiction which are discussed throughout the text, including works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, Anton Chekhov, James Baldwin, and others

A Closed and Common Orbit

Author : Becky Chambers
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062569422
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis A Closed and Common Orbit by : Becky Chambers

Download or read book A Closed and Common Orbit written by Becky Chambers and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Bestseller! Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series! A Publishers Weekly "Best Books of 2017" pick! Nominated for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel! Shortlisted for the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke Award! Winner of the Prix Julia-Verlanger! Embark on an exciting, adventurous, and dangerous journey through the galaxy with the motley crew of the spaceship Wayfarer in this fun and heart-warming space opera—the sequel to the acclaimed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow. Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet introduced readers to the incredible world of Rosemary Harper, a young woman with a restless soul and secrets to keep. When she joined the crew of the Wayfarer, an intergalactic ship, she got more than she bargained for—and learned to live with, and love, her rag-tag collection of crewmates. A Closed and Common Orbit is the stand-alone sequel to that beloved debut novel, and is perfect for fans of Firefly, Joss Whedon, Mass Effect, and Star Wars.

The Weight

Author : Andrew Vachss
Publisher : Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
ISBN 13 : 0307741311
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Weight by : Andrew Vachss

Download or read book The Weight written by Andrew Vachss and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Vachss returns with a mesmerizing novel about a hard-core thief who's about to embark on a job that will alter his life forever. Sugar’s a pure professional, “time tested” and packing 255 pounds of muscle. Accused of a rape he couldn’t have done because he was robbing a jewelry store at the time, the DA offers him two options: give up his partners in the heist and walk, or go back to prison alone. For Sugar, there isn’t a choice; he takes the weight. When he gets out, his money is there, but so is another job. One of the heist crew has fallen off the radar, and the mastermind behind the jewelry job asks Sugar to find him and make sure their secrets are safe. Sugar suspects that there’s more to this gig than what he is being told. But nothing he suspects can prepare him for what he finds.

WHORES FOR GLORIA

Author : William T. Vollmann
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307827720
Total Pages : 163 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis WHORES FOR GLORIA by : William T. Vollmann

Download or read book WHORES FOR GLORIA written by William T. Vollmann and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2013-01-02 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his first three works of fiction—the novels You Bright and Risen Angels and The Ice-Shirt, and the collection The Rainbow Stories—William T. Vollmann announced himself as a writer of rare and ferocious talent, with critics comparing him to William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, and T.C. Boyle. His new novel is the story of Jimmy, who has been deserted by his lover, a prostitute by the name of Gloria. In the despair of his loneliness, and his drunken grief, he reassembles Gloria’s presence out of whatever he can buy from the hookers on the street—the fragments of their lives and dreams, and locks of hair they are willing to share for a price. In his search for these snatches of intimacy he meets the hustlers, drunks, and prostitutes of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district: Candy, who beats her customers when they ask for it but refuses to let them call her a bitch; Snake, who pimps his wife; Nicole, whose job it is to give men AIDS; Jack, who shoots his woman’s earnings into his arm but still likes Chopin even though he doesn’t have a record player; and Gloria, who may or may not be a figment of Jimmy’s imagination. Vollmann writes with explosive power of the inner city, unflinching in the way he confronts the solitude of the homeless and unloved, the insulted and the injured of skid-row America. His exhilarating, high-voltage style and lyric language touch the heart and retrieve a jubilant integrity from the harsh struggles of his characters. Here is a world of harrowing truth, beautifully expressed by a writer of prodigious gifts.

How Should One Read a Book

Author : Virginia Woolf
Publisher : Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN 13 : 8728206487
Total Pages : 17 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (282 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis How Should One Read a Book by : Virginia Woolf

Download or read book How Should One Read a Book written by Virginia Woolf and published by Lindhardt og Ringhof. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia Woolf dreamed of the Day of Judgment. The "great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen" come to receive their rewards - crowns, laurels, names carved on marble. But, when he sees people coming with books under their arms, God turns to Peter and says: "Look, those need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. "They have loved reading." And this is the essence of her essay - sheer love for the written word: a joy in exploring the thoughts and imaginings of the author. If you sometimes get bogged down in a book, Woolf has produced the perfect self-help manual and motivational guide to reading. If you enjoyed 'How Should One Read a Book?', try 'How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading', by Mortimer J Adler. "To read a novel is a difficult and complex art," says Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) made an impact during her life, but her fame grew in the decades after her death. The English writer helped launch the use of stream-of-consciousness in literature and was a pioneer of 20th century modernism. Arguably her greatest legacy, though, comes from how her writing helped to inspire the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century. Along with members of her family and other authors, Woolf helped found the Bloomsbury Group. After she married the political theorist and author Leonard Woolf in 1912, they went on the found the Hogarth Press. Virginia also had a long relationship with the writer Vita Sackville-West. The affair featured in the 2018 movie Vita and Virginia', starring Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki, He best-known works include the novels 'Mrs Dalloway', 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Orlando'.

The Serpent and the Rope

Author : Raja Rao
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 9351188019
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (511 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Serpent and the Rope by : Raja Rao

Download or read book The Serpent and the Rope written by Raja Rao and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rama, a young scholar, meets Madeleine at a university in France. Though they seem to be made for each other, both alike in temperament and character, at times they are divided, a huge gulf separating them. Rama’s trip back to India for his father’s illness forcibly reminds him of the underlying contrasts between India and Europe, and of a certain conflict between them in himself. When he returns to France, Rama and Madeleine must face the problems in their marriage. Can they preserve their identities, or must one sacrifice one’s inheritance to make the relationship a success?

Reader, Come Home

Author : Maryanne Wolf
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062388797
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Reader, Come Home by : Maryanne Wolf

Download or read book Reader, Come Home written by Maryanne Wolf and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the acclaimed Proust and the Squid follows up with a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies. A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium. Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including: Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain? Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves? With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know? Will all these influences change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives? How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain? Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become increasingly dependent on screens. Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.

The Remains of the Day

Author : Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307576183
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Remains of the Day by : Kazuo Ishiguro

Download or read book The Remains of the Day written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is “an intricate and dazzling novel” (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

Walking Across Egypt

Author : Clyde Edgerton
Publisher : Algonquin Books
ISBN 13 : 1565129059
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (651 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Walking Across Egypt by : Clyde Edgerton

Download or read book Walking Across Egypt written by Clyde Edgerton and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 1987-01-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An unpretentious, finely-crafted novel that will linger with the readers like the last strains of a favorite hymn. It is more enjoyable than a pitcher full of sweet tea and one of Mattie's home-cooked dinners."--The Atlanta Journal & Constitution She had as much business keeping a stray dog as she had walking across Egypt--which not so incidentally is the title of her favorite hymn. She's Mattie Rigsbee, an independent, strong-minded senior citizen, who at 78, might be slowing down just a bit. When young, delinquent Wesley Benfield drops in on her life, he is even less likely a companion than the stray dog. But, of course, the dog never tasted her mouth-watering pound cake....Wise witty, down-home and real, Walking Across Egypt is a book for everyone.

Get to the Point!

Author : Joel Schwartzberg
Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1523094125
Total Pages : 129 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Get to the Point! by : Joel Schwartzberg

Download or read book Get to the Point! written by Joel Schwartzberg and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you want to improve your impact in speeches, staff meetings, pitches, emails, PowerPoint presentations, or any other communication setting, this book provides a novel approach that teaches you how to go from simply sharing a thought to making a difference. --

Azadi

Author : Arundhati Roy
Publisher : Haymarket Books
ISBN 13 : 164259380X
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (425 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Azadi by : Arundhati Roy

Download or read book Azadi written by Arundhati Roy and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chant of "Azadi!"—Urdu for "Freedom!"—is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom—a chasm or a bridge?—the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.

The Secret Sharer

Author : Joseph Conrad
Publisher : Xist Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1681951916
Total Pages : 85 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (819 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Secret Sharer by : Joseph Conrad

Download or read book The Secret Sharer written by Joseph Conrad and published by Xist Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weathering our Inner and Outer Storm “Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.” - Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer Like many of Conrad’s writings, the action in The Secret Sharer is set on a boat at sea and revolves around a central character torn apart. He is the new ship captain and has to win the trust of his crew. To make things difficult however, he accepts to hide a man accused of murder in his cabin. The two characters strike up a strange bound. This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes