Reddit mentions: The best british & irish literary criticism books

Hello. A lot of people are telling you to "read." If that seems like a no-brainer, here are some suggestions as to what you might want to read. if you're really really dedicated, you can self-study into a college-like education (based on my experience as a current student of English).

• Read from the canon. In university, I had to study Early and Later British Literature. Those two anthologies are fairly comprehensive, and Norton has more of course. They're pretty thick, I would look into Chaucer, Shakespeare Yeats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Blake. (All of those but Chaucer and Shakespeare are from the Later anthology.)
  
• To add to the above point, google university reading lists, or the western canon. Also, I believe all the authors mentioned above are in the public domain, meaning you can find all their work online for free. Once you've got a good grip on them, you can dive into more complicated works like Milton, TS Eliot, Tolstoy ect. Dostoevsky is also an amazing writer, if my ESL grandmother could read him, likely you can too.
  
• The greatest two books on fiction analysis I know of are Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism and Aristotle's Poetics. Both can be found online for free. Remember that critical examination is descriptive, not perspective. Don't let definitions limit you.
  
• When it comes to actually writing, you can get better to a certain extent just powering though it. I notice that people (everyone from those like myself, to published writers) tend to plateau. Once you feel you've hit a glass ceiling, read something difficult, or learn something new about writing/criticism. Education.
  
• Workshops. Not all colleges even offer workshop courses! However, if you're lucky enough that a nearby college, community college or community centre—if anyone near you offers creative writing workshops or courses, you should definitely consider them. Workshopping you work is great for feedback and seeing what works and what doesn't in real-time.
  
• Don't want to pay for a course, or spend money? YouTube has full courses worth of lectures. Search things like English Literature Lecture or Creative Writing Lecture and you'll find courses or single lectures from Harvard, Yale, Brigham Young Academy (idk) ect.
  
  I hope that helps. I think that's as solid and specific advice as I can give. Although, I didn't list any specific works. If you have any questions or would like suggestions, please ask.

If you want to just know buzzwords to throw around, spend a bunch of time clicking around on Wikipedia, and watch stuff like Crash Course on YouTube. It's easy to absorb, and you'll learn stuff, even if it's biased, but at least you'll be learning.

If you want to become SMARTER, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to either carry a notebook with you, or find a good note taking app you like on your phone. When someone makes a statement you don't understand, write it down and parse it up.

So for instance, write down "Social Democracy", and write down "The New Deal", and go look them up on simple.wikipedia.com (Put's all of it in simplest language possible), it's a great starting point for learning about any topic, and provides you a jumping board to look more deeply into it.

If you are really curious about starting an education, and you absolutely aren't a reader, some good books to start on are probably:

"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

"Philosophy 101" by Paul Kleinman, in fact the ____ 101 books are all pretty good "starter" books for people that want an overview of a topic they are unfamiliar with.

"The World's Religions" by Huston Smith

"An Incomplete Education" by Judy Jones and Will Wilson

Those are all good jumping off points, but great books that I think everyone should read... "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, "Western Canon" by Harold Bloom, "Education For Freedom" by Robert Hutchins, The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Major Authors, The Bible.

Read anything you find critically, don't just swallow what someone else says, read into it and find out what their sources were, otherwise you'll find yourself quoting from Howard Zinn verbatim and thinking you're clever and original when you're just an asshole.

This is probably weird, but the most fun I have is when I am planning something. (An event/party with friends or family, curriculum for a class, a date.) Related, I think, is that I really enjoy experimenting with flavor combinations in foods/baked goods/cocktails. On a more normal level, I like to read, hike, and reddit.

Simple pleasures for me? Sleep, coffee, chocolate. Ooh, and bubble bath. My perfect summer day would be sunny, warm but definitely not hot, spent in a coffee shop with the windows open to a quirky town's Main Street.

Here's a book from my WL, because you've gotta have a book with your coffee!

Pandora's Mystery Summer Box of Goodies

I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but At The Bench - A Laboratory Navigator has a 10-page chapter about keeping a lab notebook.

Here's a brief Google Books preview; unfortunately it does not cover the relevant chapter.

This presentation(PDF link) cites a book called Writing the Laboratory Notebook by Howard Kanare, which (based on the Amazon reviews) might be more geared towards industry labs but could still be pretty useful in a general sense. You can find out for yourself, since I managed to find a full text copy online(PDF link). I don't think I'm accessing this through any proxies, so it does seem like it's freely available.

For a more thorough investigation of what's out there, you should consult your institution's library; I'm sure someone will be happy to help track down the exact book you are thinking of, or something functionally equivalent.

edit - here's a PDF link to another presentation, just for fun

Lord Byron:

There are notable examples of the Byronic hero in the verse tale The Giaour, also notable for one of the first descriptions of vampirism in English literature, and the drama Manfred. Beppo is a short humorous later work that in tone and form could be considered a prototype for his masterpiece Don Juan. I also recommend the end of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, starting from Canto IV's stanza CLXXV, which is some of his best poetry.

As for a specific physical book, I like this volume because it has his complete works in a compact form, with Byron's original footnotes. The big drawback is that uses two column formatting and small print to cram everything in. The Oxford World's Classics volume Lord Byron: The Major Works looks like a good selection, that includes all the pieces I recommended, and it will be more readable because it uses one column and larger print.

The rise of "literary fiction" as a genre and belief that it is the sole genre of literary merit can be described by a multi-stage process:

1. The Modernist idea that art should be difficult. The Modernists had contempt for the common man and thus set out to create art works that required education to understand. Joyce, Le Corbusier, abstract expressionism (read Clement Greenberg on art and kitsch) all fit in this category. See John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses for more on this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Intellectuals-And-Masses-Intelligensia/dp/0897335074
   
   
2. After WWII, the GI program resulted in tons and tons of money being poured into universities. MFA programs like the Iowa Writers' Workshop became popular during this time. The professors at Iowa and these other universities were schooled in Modernism. At the undergrad level, "arts appreciation" courses also taught the Modernist conception of cultural history. Look at the way 19th century Academic painting is still dismissed in favor of the Impressionists.
   
   
3. The rise of databases to track sales to bookstores. Bookstores began categorizing their inventory like never before. Science Fiction, Romance, Erotica, Westerns, Fantasy, Fiction, Classic Fiction, Literary Fiction, etc.
   
   
4. The impact of movies. In many ways, movies are a far more emotionally engaging storytelling medium than novels. Novels are pages and pages of black and white text. Movies offer story, photography, music, actors, production design, and editing to present an overwhelming sensory experience. Just as the impact of photography hit painting hard (and was a big influence on the rise of nonrepresentational art) so too movies hit novels hard. Instead of focusing on story and character, things that in many ways movies do just as well as novels, writers began to focus on language at the sentence level.
   
   All of these trends together created the genre of "literary fiction" as we know it.

The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had a great impact on how I see the world and my life.

Flesh in the Age of Reason by Roy Porter. A great overview of the evolution of philosophy since the beginning of the Enlightenment. A surprisingly engaging, easy read.

And, I can't believe no one has said this yet - How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's a classic for a reason, and nowhere near as Machiavellian as it sounds :P

The Penguin version is not bad by any means and Declan Kiberd's introduction is excellent as well (I highly recommend his book Ulysses and Us).

But the best edition by far is the Oxford World's Classics edition. Johnson's intro and annotations are brilliant.

If you're ordering it from the US it might be easier to get it from the Book Depository

Coworker: I immediately thought she should get a really graphic Batman poster. You could even get it framed if you have enough left over. Here are some from Etsy: 1, 2, 3, 4, this one's a little different.. but it's video game related so.. here! 5
____

Boss: A nice photography book would probably be a safe bet: 1, 2, 3, 4, last one is $5 over budget, but 5
__

Professor: I'm sorry I don't have more original ideas for him but here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
__

GOOD LUCK!!

http://www.bicycles.net.au is one I failed to mention, there's also the other bicycling subreddits - /r/bicycletouring and /r/fixedgearbicycle are my favourite. I'm more interested in the touring side of cycling, so I can recommend a few good touring nooks:

"Full Tilt: Ireland to India by Bicycle," by Dervla Murphy is a great read

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychogeography-Will-Self/dp/0747590338 <-- not quite a bicycle touring book, but I know that Will Self rides a brompton and this is a book about travelling

Also, a book called "The rider" by (I think) Tim krabbe. That's more of a racing book, but it is an excellent one.

Click through links, google and generally read around and you'll stumble on more resources. Happy hunting :)

The book Scots: The Mither Tongue by Billy Kay is a favourite of mine for information on the history,politics and current situation of the Scots language. As for learning the language there are books such as this and grammar guides such as this. There is also the Dictionary of the Scots Language which is an amazingly useful resource for native and learner alike found here. As for the issue of listening to Scots speakers so you can understand pronunciation i have no suggestion however i will have a search and contact you if i find a good solution to this. When brushing up on my own Scots i always found copying passages from English into Scots as being useful for both increasing vocabulary but also making the word choice more natural when i was using it in daily life, i myself ended up completing a good chunk of the KJV in Scots. While an endeavour like the KJV is by no means recommended by me, smaller passages from books/newspapers/back of beans tins copied into Scots daily can be useful practice.

I know I must be missing some, but these are all that I can think of at the moment.

Fiction:

Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

White Noise by Don Delilo

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by DFW

Infinite Jest by DFW

Of these, you can't go wrong with Infinite Jest and the Collected Fictions of Borges. His Dark Materials is an easy and classic read, probably the lightest fare on this list.

Non-Fiction:

The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy

Chaos by James Gleick

How to be Gay by David Halperin

Barrel Fever by David Sedaris

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

Secret Historian by Justin Spring

Of these, Secret Historian was definitely the most interesting, though How to be Gay was a good intro to queer theory.

Good question. At the time it was written it was heavily criticized for being wicked and an attack on morality. Which is interesting because not too much happens throughout the story that could be considered outright wicked or amoral and the heart of the story is basically a morality tale.

For a really interesting look at the story find a book titled "Is Heathcliff A Murderer?" http://www.amazon.com/Is-Heathcliff-Murderer-Nineteenth-Century-Classics/dp/019282516X.

The writer examines several stories and considers what it is that makes them interesting or what has been left unsaid that feeds the narrative. Great stuff. TPODG is examined in one of the chapters and the reasons the author finds to support his take on why the story has the effect it does/did is really interesting.

So... I'd say yes, I believe TPODG is indeed a horror story, though certainly not what you'd expect, and it's definitely not a pulp style horror like 'Murders In The Rue Morgue' or a continual mood piece like 'Mask of the Red Death'... It's a wierd little tale, slowly building to the final moment of fantastic horror, which is lovely.

As for the films, I haven't seen any of them so I can't comment on that part.

It’s a great little book, Mark Atherton is a brilliant scholar of Old English (and his work on Tolkien is equally good, if you’re a fan). It starts very easy, then works up through real texts and cultural context. The same is true of Hough & Corbett’s Beginning Old English– lots of original sections of prose and poetry, starting with basics and building enjoyment alongside the language.

If you want something that’s more academic from the start, I’d recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction, which contains a good grounding in grammar more generally, or the more linguistics-based one by the late Richard Hogg. The best overall textbook is undeniably Mitchell & Robinson’s Guide – but it is dense and (despite what the authors claim) not easy to use in independent study. Their sections on syntax are vast and comprehensive, however, so that might be what you’re looking for.

There really isn't a papertrail for Marlowe - no library, no manuscripts (produce one and I will swoon) and no extant letters. This is not really all that uncommon - the loss of material is one of the biggest impediments to study, and it is hardly surprising considering the length of time which has elapsed. It is certainly not suspicious.

De Vere has far more surviving material by virtue of being an aristocrat, not by virtue of having written Shakespeare's work (things are much more easily kept when you have a large ancestral home).

As for pronunciation - David Crystal has done some really quite interesting work on 'restoring' Shakespeare's accent to his work, I thoroughly recommend you take a look.

I don't find anonymity to be particularly surprising for this period - authorship is not usually the first concern of the early modern reader, unless the author had become known 'in real life' so to speak. Broad examination of frontispieces to printed plays in this period suggests that information like the acting company or theatre where the play was performed took precedence over the author's name in many cases. For example, the first edition of Marlowe's Tamburlaine has no author identified. Especially considering that it is unlikely that the writer themselves who brought the work to print, anonymity is almost expected.

Also: travel writing was totally a thing in early modern England.

The two resources already mentioned, (Crystal and Millward), are both too vague to help I think. I'm not sure about the Crystal one, but the Millward treats Old English as a uniform standard (that's not a criticism of the book).

What you want is something like Campbell's Old English Grammar. There is a detailed description of the various sound changes that occurred just prior to and during Old English, and in the grammar section, after recording the West Saxon norms, it gives the dialectal alternatives as well as chronological changes.

The book is old, but still the standard. More recent and excellent are this one and this one, but it's been a few years since I've read through them so I can't give more details.

Other than those, much of what you are asking for is found scattered through various books and articles, but they are all for specialists (as are the ones I give above), so they might be tough to get through depending on your knowledge of the field.

The Táin is one of our greatest national epics - you can find an excellent translation by Kinsella (a famous Irish poet) online, no problem.

As a more pop-friendly alternative, Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick (the guy who designed the famous Che Guevara image) produced two illustrated volumes of the Book of Conquests - the founding mythology of Ireland. They are the Book of Conquests and The Silver Arm

Irish legends are primary sorted into what are called 'cycles'. There are four: the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle, and the Cycle of Kings. Each has a different flavour and revolve around different characters. You may enjoy one more the other. Our most commonly known heroes come from the Ulster and Fenian Cycles.

The Norton Edition of "The Wasteland" comes with critical commentaries, essays, copious footnotes, and Eliot's own dubious footnotes to the piece. Pretty good if you really want to dive into Eliot's masterpiece.

https://www.amazon.com/Waste-Land-Norton-Critical-Editions/dp/0393974995/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=norton+wasteland&qid=1563976887&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Tough call. Eliot and Emerson are both in my top 20. I think I'd go with the Eliot one though, Pound is way more fun than Nietzsche. Also, I recommend this copy of The Wasteland.

Edit: Fixed link

My gf has

A Handbook of Irish Folklore for college. I don't know if it is really academic or not.
She also has The Táin.

Hope that is useful for you.

I haven't actually read it yet, but it's burning a hole on my bookshelf and looks really good - Psychogeography by Will Self and Ralph Steadman.

I recommend Magick (or Book 4) reminded me of Wilson's writing style even. very accessible.

If you want more of his crazy cool ideas and poetry I recommend Book of Lies

Also this website has everything

He covers so many diverse topics everything is worh checking out!

Writing the Laboratory Notebook is a very good resource, though possibly in excess of what your class requires.

The ACS puts its name on it, for whatever that's worth.

A collection of works by Samuel Johnson, such as
this one. His dictionary of English was the standard for nearly 200 years, and he did it with only clerical assistance. It's probably the single most impressive feat of scholarship ever, and his writings on many subjects are powerfully illuminating.

"What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England"

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It's a reference book of all the mundane info you need to write a living, breathing world. You need to know the rules before you cnasteampunk them.

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This review describes it nicely: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R15YUTEEGOWF7V/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0671882368

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https://www.amazon.com/Austen-Charles-Dickens-Whist-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0671882368

https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Johnson-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199538336

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Magic-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062225677/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550233194&sr=1-1&keywords=DiscworldI highly recommend both of these.

Here's "The Intellectuals and the Masses," which is just on the opinions of "the masses" by people in the literary world in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

Book 4 by Aleister Crowley

The Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley

The Vision and the Voice by Aleister Crowley

Liber 777 by Aleister Crowley

The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley

Gems From the Equinox by Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie

The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order by Israel Regardie

The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic by Israel Regardie

The Goat Foot God by Dion Fortune

The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune

The Winged Bull by Dion Fortune

Moon Magic by Dion Fortune

Zanoni by Edward Bulwer Lytton

The Golden Ass by Apuleius

The Dream of Scipio by Cicero

Pistis Sophia by G.R.S. Mead

Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries by "a Brother of the Fraternity"

The Golden Bough by Sir George Frazer

The Voice of the Silence by H.P. Blavatsky

The Kybalion by "Three Initiates"

The Corpus Hermeticum by Hermes Trismegistus

The Book of Abramelin

The Three Magical Books of Solomon

or if you want to kick it up a notch on the occult ladder, may I recommend..

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Psychology-Brain-Software-Programs/dp/1561840718/

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Two-Peace-Expanded-3rd-Samraj/dp/1570972621/

http://www.amazon.com/Codex-Seraphinianus-Luigi-Serafini/dp/0847842134/

and, goes without saying really,

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Lies-Aleister-Crowley/dp/0877285160/

Burn after reading.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages would be my recommendation. It's the book I used when I took a class on Medieval Lit.

Here's a 19th century guide:
http://www.amazon.com/Austen-Charles-Dickens-Whist-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0671882368

[This please!] (http://www.amazon.com/Austen-Charles-Dickens-Whist-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0671882368/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=GSDXMIUT23M4&coliid=I3KQJLUT0ORAY2) Used, of course.