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Fiction » Literary Criticism

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Welcome to our literary criticism section, where we gather interviews with the finest scholars of English literature and letters, from the eminent Yale Professor Harold Bloom to the Pulitzer prize-winning author of the defining critical text Renaissance Self-Fashioning, Stephen Greenblatt.

If you're new to an era and want a big-picture historical view, check out our interviews on Adam and Eve, the Victorian essay, Victorian literature, and modernism, to name a few. After a specific author? Look no further—we have interviews with the foremost experts on Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, D H Lawrence and Jane Austen.

Whether it's a fresh look at a literary genre you already know well or a granular view of an author completely new to you, Five Books has expert recommendations to help you read more, and read smarter.

    The best books on Deconstruction, recommended by Peter Salmon

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    The best books on Deconstruction - Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida & translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

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    Of Grammatology
    by Jacques Derrida & translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

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    The best books on Deconstruction - The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by Mikhail Bakhtin & translated by Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson

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    The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
    by Mikhail Bakhtin & translated by Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson

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    The best books on Deconstruction - Jacques Derrida Circumfession by Geoffrey Bennington & Jacques Derrida

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    Jacques Derrida Circumfession
    by Geoffrey Bennington & Jacques Derrida

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    The best books on Deconstruction - The Newly Born Woman by Catherine Clément, Hélène Cixous & translated by Betsy Wing

    4

    The Newly Born Woman
    by Catherine Clément, Hélène Cixous & translated by Betsy Wing

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    The best books on Deconstruction - "53 Days" by Georges Perec, translated by David Bellos

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    "53 Days"
    by Georges Perec, translated by David Bellos

The best books on Deconstruction, recommended by Peter Salmon

For the general reader deconstruction has a bad reputation. It is seen as over-complicating, arcane and wilfully obscure—but as its founding genius Jacques Derrida pointed out, “If things were simple, word would have gotten around.” Here Peter Salmon, author of an excellent new biography of Derrida, chooses five books to get you started on the text and everything inside it.

    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism

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    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism - The Greeks and the Irrational by E R Dodds

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    The Greeks and the Irrational
    by E R Dodds

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    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism - European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages by Ernst Robert Curtius

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    European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages
    by Ernst Robert Curtius

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    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism - The Mirror and the Lamp by MH Abrams

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    The Mirror and the Lamp
    by MH Abrams

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    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism - The Rhetoric of Religion by Kenneth Burke

    4

    The Rhetoric of Religion
    by Kenneth Burke

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    Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism - Colors of the Mind by Angus Fletcher

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    Colors of the Mind
    by Angus Fletcher

Harold Bloom recommends the best of Literary Criticism

The distinguished literary critic Harold Bloom discusses the five works of literary scholarship that have most influenced him.

    The best books on Modernism, recommended by Alexandra Harris

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    The best books on Modernism - Early Modernism by Christopher Butler

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    Early Modernism
    by Christopher Butler

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    The best books on Modernism - Vision and Design by Roger Fry

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    Vision and Design
    by Roger Fry

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    The best books on Modernism - British Writers of the Thirties by Valentine Cunningham

    3

    British Writers of the Thirties
    by Valentine Cunningham

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    The best books on Modernism - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

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    Jacob's Room
    by Virginia Woolf

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    The best books on Modernism - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

    5

    The Good Soldier
    by Ford Madox Ford

The best books on Modernism, recommended by Alexandra Harris

Modernism is about form more than content, says literary scholar and critic Alexandra Harris, author of Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper. She tells us about the history of the modernist movement, and picks five books that exemplify or explain it.

    David Russell on The Victorian Essay

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    David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Prose by Charles Lamb

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    Selected Prose
    by Charles Lamb

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    David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings by Matthew Arnold

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    Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings
    by Matthew Arnold

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    David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings by George Eliot

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    Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings
    by George Eliot

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    David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Studies in the History of the Renaissance by Walter Pater

    4

    Studies in the History of the Renaissance
    by Walter Pater

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    David Russell on The Victorian Essay - The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psychoanalytic Treatment by Marion Milner

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    The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psychoanalytic Treatment
    by Marion Milner

David Russell on The Victorian Essay

With the advent of the Victorian age, polite maxims of eighteenth-century essays in the Spectator were replaced by a new generation of writers who thought deeply—and playfully—about social relationships, moral responsibility, education and culture. Here, Oxford literary critic David Russell explores the distinct qualities that define the Victorian essay and recommends five of its greatest practitioners.

    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature, recommended by Claire Jarvis

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    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

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    Wuthering Heights
    by Emily Brontë

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    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature - Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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    Aurora Floyd
    by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature - Dracula by Bram Stoker

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    Dracula
    by Bram Stoker

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    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature - Poems and Ballads by Algernon Charles Swinburne

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    Poems and Ballads
    by Algernon Charles Swinburne

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    The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature - My Secret Life by Walter

    5

    My Secret Life
    by Walter

The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature, recommended by Claire Jarvis

We often assume the Victorians had puritanical attitudes to sex, but this was far from the reality. From familiar classics to neglected gems, Claire Jarvis—Stanford academic and author of Exquisite Masochism: Sex, Marriage and the Novel Form—selects the best books on sex in Victorian literature.

    The best books on Oscar Wilde, recommended by Sos Eltis

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    The best books on Oscar Wilde - The Soul of Man Under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

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    The Soul of Man Under Socialism
    by Oscar Wilde

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    The best books on Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde

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    The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
    by Oscar Wilde

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    The best books on Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    by Oscar Wilde

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    The best books on Oscar Wilde - The Complete Short Stories by Oscar Wilde

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    The Complete Short Stories
    by Oscar Wilde

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    The best books on Oscar Wilde - De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

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    De Profundis
    by Oscar Wilde

The best books on Oscar Wilde, recommended by Sos Eltis

Oscar Wilde cultivated an image of himself as an idle genius, dashing off masterpieces with a lazy brilliance. But below the glittering linguistic surface of his works, suggests Sos Eltis, lies an anarchic politics and a phenomenal analysis of power.

    The best books on Adam and Eve, recommended by Stephen Greenblatt

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    The best books on Adam and Eve - The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter

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    The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary
    by Robert Alter

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    The best books on Adam and Eve - On Genesis by Augustine

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    On Genesis
    by Augustine

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    The best books on Adam and Eve - Paradise Lost by John Milton

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    Paradise Lost
    by John Milton

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    The best books on Adam and Eve - The Bible According to Mark Twain by Mark Twain

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    The Bible According to Mark Twain
    by Mark Twain

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    The best books on Adam and Eve - The Symbolism of Evil by Paul Ricoeur

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    The Symbolism of Evil
    by Paul Ricoeur

The best books on Adam and Eve, recommended by Stephen Greenblatt

Who were Adam and Eve, really? Over many centuries, the origin story has undergone countless transformations. The Pulitzer Prize-winner and Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt chooses five books that explore the history of Adam and Eve, and tells us why the world isn’t ready to leave the narrative of Eden behind

    The best books on D H Lawrence, recommended by Catherine Brown

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    The best books on D H Lawrence - Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence

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    Twilight in Italy
    by D. H. Lawrence

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    The best books on D H Lawrence - Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

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    Women in Love
    by D. H. Lawrence

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    The best books on D H Lawrence - Mr Noon by D. H. Lawrence

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    Mr Noon
    by D. H. Lawrence

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    The best books on D H Lawrence - Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine by D. H. Lawrence

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    Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine
    by D. H. Lawrence

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    The best books on D H Lawrence - Birds, Beasts and Flowers by D. H. Lawrence

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    Birds, Beasts and Flowers
    by D. H. Lawrence

The best books on D H Lawrence, recommended by Catherine Brown

Although less flamboyantly experimental than his contemporaries Joyce and Woolf, D H Lawrence was a modernist, says literary scholar Catherine Brown. Here, she selects five books that make the case for this most contradictory, and often divisive, of writers—a man whose fictions and ‘philosophicalish’ works were by turns brilliant and bewildering, sublime and ridiculous

    The best books on Virginia Woolf, recommended by Hermione Lee

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    The best books on Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

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    To the Lighthouse
    by Virginia Woolf

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    The best books on Virginia Woolf - The Years by Virginia Woolf

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    The Years
    by Virginia Woolf

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    The best books on Virginia Woolf - Walter Sickert: A Conversation by Virginia Woolf

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    Walter Sickert: A Conversation
    by Virginia Woolf

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    The best books on Virginia Woolf - On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf

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    On Being Ill
    by Virginia Woolf

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    The best books on Virginia Woolf - Selected Diaries by Virginia Woolf

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    Selected Diaries
    by Virginia Woolf

The best books on Virginia Woolf, recommended by Hermione Lee

Virginia Woolf was long dismissed as a ‘minor modernist’ but now stands as one of the giants of 20th century literature. Her biographer, Hermione Lee, talks us through the best Virginia Woolf books, novels and essays, and diaries, of Virginia Woolf.

    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019, recommended by Stephanie Kelley

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    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019 - The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979 Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell (ed. Saskia Hamilton)

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    The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979
    Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell (ed. Saskia Hamilton)

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    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019 - Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

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    Veronica
    by Mary Gaitskill

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    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019 - Life with Picasso by Carlton Lake & Françoise Gilot

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    Life with Picasso
    by Carlton Lake & Françoise Gilot

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    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019 - Nobody's Looking at You: Essays by Janet Malcolm

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    Nobody's Looking at You: Essays
    by Janet Malcolm

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    Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019 - How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

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    How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
    by Jenny Odell

Editors’ Picks: Favorite Books of 2019, recommended by Stephanie Kelley

Looking for captivating, eccentric novels, essays and letters to read at the turn of the new year? Five Books literary editor Stephanie Kelley shares favorites from her year in reading—new and old.

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We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

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