Новинки Эммы Смит

Most of what we say about books is really about the words inside them: the rosy nostalgic glow for childhood reading, the lifetime companionship of a much-loved novel. But books are things as well as words, objects in our lives as well as worlds in our heads. And just as we crack their spines, loosen their leaves and write in their margins, so they disrupt and disorder us in turn. All books are, as Stephen King put it, 'a uniquely portable magic'. Here, Emma Smith shows us why.
Portable Magic unfurls an exciting and iconoclastic new story of the book in human hands, exploring when, why and how it acquired its particular hold over us. Gathering together a millennium's worth of pivotal encounters with volumes big and small, Smith reveals that, as much as their contents, it is books' physical form - their 'bookhood' - that lends them their distinctive and sometimes dangerous magic. From the Diamond Sutra to Jilly Cooper's Riders, to a book made of wrapped slices of cheese, this composite artisanal object has, for centuries, embodied and extended relationships between readers, nations, ideologies and cultures, in significant and unpredictable ways.
Exploring the unexpected and unseen consequences of our love affair with books, Portable Magic hails the rise of the mass-market paperback, and dismantles the myth that print began with Gutenberg; it reveals how our reading habits have been shaped by American soldiers, and proposes new definitions of a 'classic'-and even of the book itself. Ultimately, it illuminates the ways in which our relationship with the written word is more reciprocal - and more turbulent - than we tend to imagine.

Автор представляет Шекспира как провокационного и по-прежнему современного драматурга и предлагает новое прочтение его знаменитых и менее известных пьес. Самая почитаемая фигура английской классики предстает в новом, удивительно вдохновляющем свете.

Эмма Смит – ведущий шекспировед, профессор английской литературы в Оксфордском университете и научный сотрудник Хартфордского колледжа.

Новое прочтение пьес Уильяма Шекспира от известного шекспироведа Эммы Смит. Книга поможет увидеть в великом писателе провокационного и по-прежнему современного драматурга и объяснит, что делает его произведения актуальными по сей день. Гениальный поэт и провидец, в чьих строках отражены и предугаданы судьбы всего человечества. Творец невероятно богатых и сложных метафор. Мастер, которому не было равных среди современников и среди потомков. И все это Шекспир? Ну почти. Но ведь это еще далеко не вся правда. Многое из того, что мы привычно говорим о Шекспире, неверно или просто неважно: эти слова не более чем дымовая завеса, которая…

A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It…