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"Sparky Sweets, Ph.D. and Wisecrack present Thug Notes, the outrageously funny, ultra-sharp guide to sixteen of literature's most beloved classics - including The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice and Things Fall Apart. Having already taught millions around the world, Dr. Sweets makes it easy to love and understand these important literary works. With hilarious character breakdowns, masterful analyses, witty observations,...
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English
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A collection of twenty reviews, essays and pieces of memoir selected from three decades of the author's contributions to the London review of books. Subjects include Robespierre and Danton, the Hite report, Saudi Arabia (where she lived for four years in the 1980s), the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary as well as the pop icon Madonna, and Helen Duncan, Britain's last witch. There are essays about Jane Boleyn, Charles Brandon, Christopher...
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English
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Roald Dahl is the one of the most successful children's authors of all time. His words weave magical worlds and his characters continue to charm and terrify new generations. Comedian and best-selling author David Walliams delves into Dahl's world, along the way meeting those who knew him best. He travels to Cardiff, where Dahl was raised on Norwegian fairy tales and experienced school trauma that later informed his books; visits Dahl's Buckinghamshire...
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English
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • We all have dreams—things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi’s dream and of the nightmare that made it come true.
For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had...
For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had...
Language
English
Description
As the British empire expanded ever outward, English writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries turned their gaze inward to matters of ethical and moral import. The social and psychological realities of the human condition were increasingly explored in the fiction and verse of writers such as Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.
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English
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Pilgrims on their way to worship at the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury stop at the Tabard Inn. They represent a cross-section of medieval English society. To amuse themselves on their journey, they agree that each will tell a tale that reveals much about each individual. This is often called the first book of poetry written in English.
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English
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In Queen Victoria's day, this is the one they expurgated from the complete Canterbury Tales; fortunately, the modern sensibility responds with the intended laughter at the most notoriously misdirected kiss in European literature. Here the tale is told as Chaucer might have told it-in Middle English (with modern English subtitles) and appropriate costume, to an audience of contemporaries who shared Chaucer's own astonishing combination of grossness...
19) Jane Eyre
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English
Description
Journalist and novelist Bidisha was fascinated by Bronte's Jane Eyre as a teenager, but re-reading the story as an adult left her feeling uncomfortable. What Bronte had to say about sex and race was darker and more disturbing than she remembered. Revisiting this classic Victorian novel, Bidisha sees her role model, and the society which spawned her, through very different eyes. Is Jane Eyre really the spirited, independent woman Bidisha admired as...
Language
English
Description
This program from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of Robert Burns' life and major works, including occasional poems, reflective poems, dramatic poems, and lyrics. Beginning with a reading of "To a Mouse," the video introduces Burns parents, William and Agnes Burns, who, though poor farmers, supported the writer's education and surrounded him with Scottish folk songs. As he grew older, Burns rebelled against traditional Scottish values...