French philosopher and literary theorist Roland Barthes was one of the leading influences on the post-structuralist movement in twentieth-century literary thought, and some of his best-known works, like S-Z, speak directly to the essential and indivi...

If it takes only a few rogue financiers to collapse the economy, can one earnest investment officer save the dollar from collapse? Ken Murai, the protagonist of this fast-paced novel by Michael S. Koyama, is a young officer in the Japanese ministry o...

Murder, revenge, deranged fantasies and dark superstitions: better leave the lights on after reading these 24 chilling tales of horror and suspense, spun by master storyteller Edgar Allan Poe. This collection includes such unforgettable stories as "T...

Thanks to the huge success of the Twilight series, vampires have become the most popular supernatural creatures on earth. But Dracula is the one that started it all, back in 1897. Bram Stokers eternally terrifying classic established the genre, with...

"Environment at the Crossroads", the theme of the 2009 Gulbenkian Conference, addresses the most urgent crisis confronting the world today, in its four essential aspects: How deeply is the current economic malaise rooted in failing systems? Do we hav...

These lines, from the title poem of "Waterloo Teeth", set an historical aftermath in vivid motion. John Whale's first book of poems explores our capacity to articulate the pain and pleasure of such experiences – our own, and those of others distant f...

Zigzag: five sequences marks the welcome return of Anthony Rudolf – publisher, translator, autobiographer, essayist – to his first vocation, poetry. Apart from collaborations with artists, this is his first book containing poems for more than thirty...

The ancient Greek poet Hesiod is best known for two poems, the "Theogony" and the "Works and Days". The "Theogony" gives an account of the creation of the universe andthe war between the Titans and Olympians, while "Works and Days" offers plain-speak...

Judith Wright (1915-2000) is one of Australia's best loved, and essential, poets. Devoted to place, responsive to landscape and to the violence done to the land and its inhabitants, John Kinsella says in his introduction",she looked inwards into Aust...

The Austrian playwright, novelist, and poet Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is acknowledged as among the major writers of our time. The seven stories in this collection capture Bernhard's distinct darkly comic voice and vision – often compared to Kafka a...