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A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Les Misérables is among the most popular and enduring novels ever written. Like Inspector Javert’s dogged pursuit of Jean Valjean, its appeal has never wan

An NBCC Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award finalistA New York Times Notable Book for 2011 One of The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year People speak different languages, and always have. The Anci

As spring arrives in the Albanian mountain town of B, some strange things are emerging in the thaw. Bank robbers strike the National Bank. Old terrors are dredged up from the shipwreck of history. And

The undisputed master of stylistic criticism, Leo Spitzer combined phenomenal learning in historical and comparative linguistics with brilliant and original critical insight. He was born in Vienna in 1887. He studied Romance Philology at the Universities of Vienna and Paris and then taught at Vienna, Bonn, Marburg and Cologne. After escaping from Germany in 1933, he taught briefly at Istanbul and then at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He died in 1960. He was the author of over 800 books, articles, reviews and notes on the language and literatures of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Germany, England and America from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. This translation brings together for the first time in any language all of Spitzer's work on the literature of seventeenth-century France, including 'Racine's classical piano' (1928) and 'Saint-Simon's portrait of Louis XIV' (1928). Each of the essays demonstrates in practical rather than theoretical terms the ess

In this biography David Bellos does more than trace the career of Jacques Tati, from his first success with Jour de fete and M. Hulot's Holiday, through the disaster of Playtime that left him bankrup

This up-to-date account of the novel's composition, structure, and achievement provides readers with the literary and historical knowledge needed to make sense of the text. Professor Bellos explains h

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos asks: how do we really make ourselves understood to other people? This funny, wise and life-affirming language book shows how, from puns to poetry, news bul

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 One of The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year People speak different languages, and always have. The Ancient Greeks took no notice of anything unless it was sai