The Oxford Book of Death

The Oxford Book of Death
Author: D. J. Enright
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0199556520

The inescapable reality of death has given rise to much of literature's most profound and moving work. D. J. Enright's wonderfully eclectic selection presents the words of poet and novelist, scientist and philosopher, mystic and sceptic. And alongside these 'professional' writers, he allows the voices of ordinary people to be heard; for this is a subject on which there are no real experts and wisdom lies in many unexpected places.

The Oxford Book of Oxford

The Oxford Book of Oxford
Author: Jan Morris
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780192804075

In this entertaining and lively anthology, Jan Morris traces the history of Oxford University from its foundation in the Middle Ages through to the twentieth century, combining extracts from contemporary observers with her own informative commentary. The reader is invited to view the development of the college system, the creation of the Bodleian, Magdalen's defiance of James II, Newman, and the Oxford Movement. The life and times of Oxford are exalted or derided by writers ranging from the antiquarian Anthony Wood to Evelyn Waugh, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gladstone, Hilaire Belloc and Thomas Hardy. Unworldly scholars and eccentric dons walk the pages, accompanied by the great characters of Oxford such as Benjamin Jowett, Sir Maurice Bowra, and William Spooner.

The Oxford Book of the American South

The Oxford Book of the American South
Author: Edward L. Ayers
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 608
Release: 1997
Genre: American literature
ISBN: 0195124936

Gathers short stories, journalism, and excerpts from novels, diaries, and memoirs by Southern authors.

The Oxford Book of Exploration

The Oxford Book of Exploration
Author: Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 595
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192805568

Selected by Robin Hanbury-Tenison, whom the Sunday Times called the 'greatest explorer of the last twenty years', this is a comprehensive anthology of the writings of explorers through the ages, now fully revised and updated. The ultimate in travel writing, these are the words of those who changed the world through their pioneering search for new lands, new peoples, and new experiences. Divided into geographical sections, the book takes us to Asia with Vasco da Gama, Francis Younghusband, and Wilfred Thesiger, to the Americas with John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake, and Alexander Von Humboldt, to Africa with Dr David Livingstone and Mary Kingsley, to the Pacific with Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook, and to the Poles with Robert Peary and Wally Herbert. Driven by a desire to discover that transcends all other considerations, the vivid writings of these extraordinary people reveal what makes them go beyond the possible and earn the right to be known as explorers.

The Oxford Book of Essays

The Oxford Book of Essays
Author: John Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 680
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0199556555

The essay is one of the richest of literary forms. Its most obvious characteristics are freedom, informality, and the personal touch--though it can also find room for poetry, satire, fantasy, and sustained argument. All these qualities, and many others, are on display in The Oxford Book of Essays. The most wide-ranging collection of its kind to appear for many years, it includes 140 essays by 120 writers: classics, curiosities, meditations, diversions, old favorites, recent examples that deserve to be better known. A particularly welcome feature is the amount of space allotted to American essayists, from Benjamin Franklin to John Updike and beyond. This is an anthology that opens with wise words about the nature of truth, and closes with a consideration of the novels of Judith Krantz. Some of the other topics discussed in its pages are anger, pleasure, Gandhi, Beau Brummell, wasps, party-going, gangsters, plumbers, Beethoven, potato crisps, the importance of being the right size, and the demolition of Westminster Abbey. It contains some of the most eloquent writing in English, and some of the most entertaining.

The Oxford Book of London

The Oxford Book of London
Author: Paul Bailey
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 408
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN:

No city in the world has so consistently stimulated the literary imagination as London. Over the centuries, writers, poets, historians, artists, and simple observers have chronicled the life and growth of this intriguing city. In his sparkling anthology, Paul Bailey has captured the essence of London's allure, from the Middle Ages to the present day, with wit, humor, and pathos.

The Oxford Book of Money

The Oxford Book of Money
Author: Kevin Jackson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780192825100

Few things occupy as central a place in our lives as money, and few provoke such intense and varied response. Now in an entertaining book, Jackson brings together reflections on money by some of the most brilliant minds who have ever lived. Shakespeare, Milton, Mark Twain, Jane Austen and others help readers to rexamine what money means to them and rethink its value in their lives.

The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing

The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2009
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0199216819

Selected and introduced by Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a celebration of the finest writing by scientists for a wider audience - revealing that many of the best scientists have displayed as much imagination and skill with the pen as they have in the laboratory.This is a rich and vibrant collection that captures the poetry and excitement of communicating scientific understanding and scientific effort from 1900 to the present day. Professor Dawkins has included writing from a diverse range of scientists, some of whom need no introduction, and some of whoseworks have become modern classics, while others may be less familiar - but all convey the passion of great scientists writing about their science.

The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes

The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes
Author: John Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0199543410

In The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes, master anthologist John Gross brings together a delectable smorgasbord of literary tales, offering striking new insight into some of the most important writers in history. Many of the anecdotes here are funny, others are touching, outrageous, sinister, inspiring, or downright weird. They show writers from Chaucer to Bob Dylan acting both unpredictably and deeply in character. The range is wide--this is a book which finds room for Milton and Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut and P. G. Wodehouse, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin and Tom Wolfe. It is also a book in which you can find out which great historian's face was once mistaken for a baby's bottom, which film star experienced a haunting encounter with Virginia Woolf not long before her death, and what Agatha Christie really thought of her popular character Hercule Poirot. It is in short an unrivalled collection of literary gossip offering intimate glimpses into the lives of authors ranging from Shakespeare to Philip Roth--a book not just for lovers of literature, but for anyone with a taste for the curiosities of human nature.