Since the 1980s, Ireland has gone through a profound social, demographic, and religious disruption, the impact of which has been seen across recent fiction from Irish writers. Companion to the Contemporary Irish Novel traces this cultural shift and its impact by examining how modern novels have reckoned with a new conception of Irishness.Despite the heady mix of cultural and social destabilization, reform, and economic successes and challenges, this period of relentless di...

‘Reading The Failing Heart is like taking a trip; part escape into another consciousness, part suffocating delusion. The story – or rather the scaffolding upon which Smith displays elegant philosophical architecture – follows a young scholar whose mother has just died. Estranged from his father after stealing his money, hounded by the ominous figure of his landlord, and oppressed with images of his ex-lover’s impending labour, he wanders into an existential purgatory. “All these open mouth...

This collection of critical essays explores the literary and visual cultures of modern Irish suburbia, and the historical, social and aesthetic contexts in which these cultures have emerged. The lived experience and the artistic representation of Irish suburbia have received relatively little scholarly consideration and this multidisciplinary volume redresses this critical deficit. It significantly advances the nascent socio-historical field of Irish suburban studies, while simultaneously ...

Children's literature takes many forms - works adapted for children in antiquity, picture books and pop-ups - and now includes the latest online games and eBooks. This vast and amorphous subject is both intimately related to other areas of literary and cultural investigation but also has its own set of concerns, issues and challenges. From familiar authors including Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, classic books such as Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “extraordinary meditation on mortality, grief, death, childhood and memory" (USA Today) about a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside to grieve the loss of his wife.In this luminous novel, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a ret...

From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein’s Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilismDerek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affec...

Some of the most innovative and spell-binding literature has been written for young people, but only recently has academic study embraced its range and complexity. This Companion offers a state-of-the-subject survey of English-language children's literature from the seventeenth century to the present. With discussions ranging from eighteenth-century moral tales to modern fantasies by J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman, the Companion illuminates acknowledged classics and many more neglected w...

The concept of gender continues to be a central issue in literary and cultural studies, with a significance that crosses disciplinary boundaries and provokes lively debate. In this fully revised and updated second edition, David Glover and Cora Kaplan offer a lucid and illuminating introduction to ’gender’ and its implications, including:an overview of the critical language and concepts surrounding gender from their historical inception to contemporary debatesdiscus...

A brilliantly told and beautifully written novel that defies categorization, Under the Skin introduces Isserley, a woman obsessed with picking up male hitchhikers— so long as they're well-muscled and alone. But why? As the story unfolds and the reason is made explicit, the reader is drawn inexorably into a completely unexpected and increasingly terrifying world.

This book brings together a huge range of material including academic articles, film scripts and interplanetary messages adrift on space probes with supporting commentary to clarify their imporatance to the field. Communication Studies: The Essential Resource is a collection of essays and texts for all those studying communication at university and pre-university level.Individual sections address:* texts and meanings in communication* themes in personal comm...

The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel.After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back...

Irish Children’s Literature and Culture looks critically at Irish writing for children from the 1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging with major genres, forms, and issues, including the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks, ethnicity, and globalization. It contextualizes modern Irish children’s literature in relation to Irish mythology and earlier writings, as well as in relation to Irish writing for adults, thereby demonstrating t...