Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
Monthly median sales (top 30)
$3,349
The median book price
$9.97
Bestseller's daily sales
192
50th book's daily sales
7
Average number of pages per book
333
Monopoly/Olygopoly detected
No
Performance tracking
Competitiveness
Volume sales
Book price
Volatility
New releases
Self published
Matching KDP categories
fiction > alternative history
51.64%
nonfiction > music > history & criticism
44.72%
nonfiction > design > history & criticism
44.72%
nonfiction > performing arts > theater > history & criticism
36.51%
Keyword requirement
Best selling keywords
Median title & subtitle length is 8 words:
- Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021
- The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic Novel)
- Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
- The Great Gatsby (Deluxe Hardbound Edition) (Fingerprint! Classics)
- The Sun and Her Flowers
- Indie success
-
21.05%
- Volatility
- New releases
- KDP Select
95%
10.53%
13.33%
Extract of the best seller list's front page
Front-page bestsellers:
Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021
Margaret Atwood
The Great Jazz Age Novel_______The 1925 Original Version, with Classroom History_______The Great Gatsby is considered F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, exploring themes of decadence, idealism, social stigmas, patriarchal norms, and the deleterious effects of unencumbered wealth in capitalistic society, set against the backdrop of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. At its heart, it’s a cautionary tale, a revealing look into the darker side to the American Dream.“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men...” Read more
This deluxe edition of the world's most beloved, bestselling classic on Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology is stunningly illustrated with specially commissioned full-color plates and a beautiful gold-bordered pages. Since its original publication in 1942, Edith Hamilton's Mythology has sold millions of copies throughout the world and established itself as a perennial bestseller. For nearly 80 years, readers have chosen Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes above all other books to discover the enchanting world of Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology -- from Odysseus's adventure-filled journey to Odin's effort to postpone the final day of doom. This deluxe, hardcover edition is illustrated throughout with specially commissioned, original artwork and beautifully illustrated lineages, making it a true collector's item. Read more
The Great Gatsby (Deluxe Hardbound Edition) (Fingerprint! Classics)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Enter the dazzling world of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a tale of wealth, ambition, and the elusive American Dream. Set in the opulent 1920s, the story follows Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, who pursues his unattainable love, Daisy Buchanan. Amidst extravagant parties and societal excess, Fitzgerald weaves a narrative of love, betrayal, and the dark undercurrents of the Jazz Age. Through vivid prose and complex characters, the novel explores themes of disillusionment, class divide, and the relentless pursuit of an idealized past. With its timeless exploration of human desires and the consequences of unchecked ambition, ""The Great Gatsby"" remains a literary masterpiece that resonates across generations. A mesmerizing portrayal of the Roaring Twenties' decadence. Intricate character study of love, ambition, and disillusionment. Fitzgerald's evocative prose transports readers to a bygone era. A critique of the American Dream's elusive allure. A classic that captures the essence of a tumultuous era. Read more
The Sun and Her Flowers
Rupi Kaur
Divided into five chapters and illustrated by kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.this is the recipe of lifesaid my motheras she held me in her arms as i weptthink of those flowers you plantin the garden each yearthey will teach youthat people toomust wiltfallrootrisein order to bloom Read more
Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
Natalie Haynes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to, and how they sometimes made idiots of . . . but read on!”—Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's TaleThe national bestselling author of A Thousand Ships returns with a fascinating, eye-opening take on the remarkable women at the heart of classical stories Greek mythology from Helen of Troy to Pandora and the Amazons to Medea.The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil—like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world’s suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was a jar . . . which is far more likely to tip over.In Pandora’s Jar, the broadcaster, writer, stand-up comedian, and passionate classicist turns the tables, putting the women of the Greek myths on an equal footing with the men. With wit, humor, and savvy, Haynes revolutionizes our understanding of epic poems, stories, and plays, resurrecting them from a woman’s perspective and tracing the origins of their mythic female characters. She looks at women such as Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother-turned-lover-and-wife (turned Freudian sticking point), at once the cleverest person in the story and yet often unnoticed. She considers Helen of Troy, whose marriage to Paris “caused” the Trojan war—a somewhat uneven response to her decision to leave her husband for another man. She demonstrates how the vilified Medea was like an ancient Beyonce—getting her revenge on the man who hurt and betrayed her, if by extreme measures. And she turns her eye to Medusa, the original monstered woman, whose stare turned men to stone, but who wasn’t always a monster, and had her hair turned to snakes as punishment for being raped.Pandora’s Jar brings nuance and care to the millennia-old myths and legends and asks the question: Why are we so quick to villainize these women in the first place—and so eager to accept the stories we’ve been told? Read more
The Marriage Portrait: A novel
Maggie O'Farrell
WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.“I could not stop reading this incredible true story.” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club Pick)"O’Farrell pulls out little threads of historical detail to weave this story of a precocious girl sensitive to the contradictions of her station...You may know the history, and you may think you know what’s coming, but don’t be so sure." —The Washington PostFlorence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble? As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance. Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival. Read more
Byron: A Life in Ten Letters
Andrew Stauffer
Lord Byron was the most celebrated of all the Romantic poets. Troubled, handsome, sexually fluid, disabled, and transgressive, he wrote his way to international fame – and scandal – before finding a kind of redemption in the Greek Revolution. He also left behind the vast trove of thrilling letters (to friends, relatives, lovers, and more) that form the core of this remarkable biography. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Byron's death, and adopting a fresh approach, it explores his life and work through some of his best, most resonant correspondence. Each chapter opens with Byron's own voice – as if we have opened a letter from the poet himself – followed by a vivid account of the emotions and experiences that missive touches. This gripping life traces the meteoric trajectory of a poet whose brilliance shook the world and whose legacy continues to shape art and culture to this day. Read more
Pride & Prejudice
Jane Austen
None
Bls Provider Manual 2020
Amaerican Heart Ass
Basic Life Support Provider Manual (Product #20-1102) Read more
A stunning collection of all 80 exquisite Little Black Classics from Penguin This spectacular box set of the 80 books in the Little Black Classics series showcases the many wonderful and varied writers in Penguin Black Classics. From India to Greece, Denmark to Iran, the United States to Britain, this assortment of books will transport readers back in time to the furthest corners of the globe. With a choice of fiction, poetry, essays and maxims, by the likes of Chekhov, Balzac, Ovid, Austen, Sappho and Dante, it won't be difficult to find a book to suit your mood. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of the Penguin Classics list - from drama to poetry, from fiction to history, with books taken from around the world and across numerous centuries.The Little Black Classics Box Set includes: · The Atheist's Mass (Honoré de Balzac)· The Beautifull Cassandra (Jane Austen)· The Communist Manifesto (Fredrich Engels and Karl Marx)· Cruel Alexis (Virgil) · The Dhammapada (Anon)· The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon (Aesop)· The Eve of St Agnes (John Keats)· The Fall of Icarus (Ovid)· The Figure in the Carpet (Henry James)· The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows (Rudyard Kipling)· Gooseberries (Anton Chekhov)· The Great Fire of London (Samuel Pepys)· The Great Winglebury Duel (Charles Dickens) · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog (Johann Peter Hebel) · How Much Land Does A Man Need? (Leo Tolstoy) · How To Use Your Enemies (Baltasar Gracián) · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing (Michel de Montaigne) · I Hate and I Love (Catullus) · Il Duro (D. H. Lawrence) · It was snowing butterflies (Charles Darwin) · Jason and Medea (Apollonius of Rhodes) · Kasyan from the Beautiful Mountains (Ivan Turgenev) · Leonardo da Vinci (Giorgio Vasari)· The Life of a Stupid Man (Ryunosuke Akutagawa) · Lips Too Chilled (Matsuo Basho) · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (Oscar Wilde)· The Madness of Cambyses (Herodotus· The Maldive Shark (Herman Melville)· The Meek One (Fyodor Dostoyevsky · Mrs Rosie and the Priest (Giovanni Boccaccio) · My Dearest Father (Wolfgang Mozart)· The Night is Darkening Round Me (Emily Brontë)· The nightingales are drunk (Hafez)· The Nose (Nikolay Gogol) · Olalla (Robert Louis Stevenson)· The Old Man in the Moon (Shen Fu), Miss Brill (Katherine Mansfield)· The Old Nure's Story (Elizabeth Gaskell) · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (Thomas De Quincey) · On the Beach at Night Alone (Walt Whitman)· The Reckoning (Edith Wharton) · Remember, Body… (C. P. Cavafy)· The Robber Bridegroom (Brothers Grimm)· The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue (Anon) · Sindbad the Sailor · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) · Socrates' Defence (Plato) · Speaking of Siva (Anon)· The Steel Flea (Nikolai Leskov) · The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe) · The Terrors of the Night (Thomas Nashe) · The Tinder Box (Hans Christian Andersen)· Three Tang Dynasty Poets (Wang Wei)· Trimalchio's Feast (Petronius)· To-morrow (Joseph Conrad), Of Street Piemen (Henry Mayhew)· Traffic (John Ruskin)· Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls (Marco Polo) · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe (Richard Hakluyt) · The Wife of Bath (Geoffrey Chaucer) · The Woman Much Missed (Thomas Hardy) · The Yellow Wall-paper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) · Wailing Ghosts (Pu Songling) · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Read more
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
"Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Though the gifts of wildish nature come to us at birth, society's attempt to 'civilize' us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become overdomesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped."In her now-classic book that spent 144 weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, and is translated into 35 languages, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., shows how woman's vitality can be restored through what she calls "psychic archaeological digs" into the ruins of the female unconscious. Dr. Estés uses her families' ethnic tales, washed and rinsed in the blood of wars and survival, multicultural myths, her own lyric writing of those fairy tales, folk tales, and stories chosen from her life witness, and also research ongoing for twenty years… that help women reconnect with the healthy, instinctual, visionary attributes of the Wild Woman archetype.Dr. Estés collects the bones of many stories, looking for the archetypal motifs that set a woman's inner life into motion. Her "La Loba" teaches about the transformative function of the psyche; in "Bluebeard," we learn what to do with wounds that will not heal; in her literary story "Skeleton Woman," we glimpse the mystical power of relationship and how dead feelings can be revived; "Vasalisa the Wise" brings our lost womanly instincts to the surface again; "The Handless Maiden" recovers the Wild Woman initiation rites; and "The Little Match Girl" warns against the insidious dangers of a life spent in fantasy. These and other stories focus on the many qualities of Wild Woman. With them, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand her, and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine.In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., is an internationally known poet, post-trauma recovery specialist, senior training psychoanalyst [Jungian], and cantadora [keeper of the old stories] in her mestizo Latina tradition. Her doctorate is in ethno-clinical psychology / indigenous history from The Union Institute. She is an award-winning author both performance art and spoken word. PRAISE FOR WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES"I am grateful to Women Who Run With the Wolves and to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The work shows the reader how glorious it is to be daring, to be caring, and to be a woman. Everyone who can read should read this book."—MAYA ANGELOU"A deeply spiritual book . . . She honors what is tough, smart, and untamed in women. She venerates the female soul."—The Washington Post"Women Who Run With the Wolves isn’t just another book. It is a gift of profound insight, wisdom, and love. An oracle for one who knows."—ALICE WALKER"An inspiring book, the ‘vitamins for the soul’ [for women] who are cut off from their intuitive nature."—San Francisco Chronicle"Millennia of humans have gathered around fires to hear words that transferred hard-won wisdom and allowed dreams of unlimited possibilities. In a modern world that limits wisdom to 'facts,' and women’s access even to those, Dr. Estés has restored the fire—for us all."—GLORIA STEINEM"Stands out from the pack . . . This book will become a bible for women interested in doing deep work. . . . It is a road map of all the pitfalls, those familiar and those horrifically unexpected, that a woman encounters on the way back to her instinctual self. Wolves . . . is a gift."—Los Angeles Times Read more
The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work" and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print. Read more
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. Following a move to the French Riviera, Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924. He submitted it to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After making revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. Painter Francis Cugat's cover art greatly impressed Fitzgerald, and he incorporated aspects of it into the novel.After its publication by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, though some literary critics believed it did not equal Fitzgerald's previous efforts. Compared to his earlier novels, Gatsby was a commercial disappointment, selling fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald's hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized. When the author died in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. Read more
Jane Eyre originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.The novel revolutionized prose fiction by being the first to focus on its protagonist's moral and spiritual development through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness", and the literary ancestor of writers like Marcel Proust and James Joyce. Read more
Devotees of the bard will relish this fresh take on his work―where math and numbers illuminate Shakespeare’s use of science, games, money, magic, astronomy, and moreBooks on Shakespeare are plentiful, but until now there has never been a book written for a general audience about math and science in Shakespeare’s time and how they influenced his works.Shakespeare grew up in a time of remarkable mathematical innovation. From astronomy to probability, music to multiplication, new mathematical ideas were taking off―and much of this was reflected in his work. In this highly engaging book, award-winning author Rob Eastaway explores the surprising and entertaining ways that mathematics and numbers crop up in Shakespeare’s plays.We discover how Tudors multiplied, why Shakespeare never ended a line with the word orange, and why King Lear was every inch a king, and why early drafts of the plays could possibly have been written with a pencil. Shakespeare’s world was one in which one might expect to travel no more than a league in an hour, and fathoms and furlongs were as much a part of the language as feet and yards. It was hard to conceive of anything shorter than a minute and the rainbow probably had just five colors.With historical asides about games, optics, astronomy, and music thrown in, you might never think about math or Shakespeare the same way again. 43 black-and-white illustrations Read more
Shakespeare everyone can understand—now in this new EXPANDED edition of MACBETH! Why fear Shakespeare? By placing the words of the original play next to line-by-line translations in plain English, this popular guide makes Shakespeare accessible to everyone. And now it features expanded literature guide sections that help students study smarter. The expanded sections include: Five Key Questions: Five frequently asked questions about major moments and characters in the play. What Does the Ending Mean?: Is the ending sad, celebratory, ironic . . . or ambivalent? Plot Analysis: What is the play about? How is the story told, and what are the main themes? Why do the characters behave as they do? Study Questions: Questions that guide students as they study for a test or write a paper. Quotes by Theme: Quotes organized by Shakespeare’s main themes, such as love, death, tyranny, honor, and fate. Quotes by Character: Quotes organized by the play’s main characters, along with interpretations of their meaning. Read more
Newly updated. This edition has been professionally formatted and contains several tables of contents.Metaphysics by AristotleNicomachean Ethics by AristotleOn Sophistical Refutations by AristotleOn Youth And Old Age, On Life And Death, On Breathing by AristotlePolitics by AristotleOn the Heavens by AristotleOn the Soul by AristotleOn Generation and Corruption by AristotleThe Categories by AristotleThe History of Animals by AristotlePoetics by AristotleThe Seven Against Thebes by AeschylusThe Suppliants by AeschylusAgamemnon by AeschylusThe Persians by AeschylusChoephori by AeschylusThe Eumenides by AeschylusPrometheus Bound by AeschylusThe Argonautica by ApolloniusCupid and Psyche by ApuleiusMeditations by Marcus AureliusThe Golden Sayings of Epictetus by EpictetusThe Discourses of Epictetus by EpictetusEnchiridion by EpictetusThe Trojan Women by EuripidesIphigenia At Aulis by EuripidesThe Cyclops by EuripidesAlcestis by EuripidesAndromache by EuripidesHeracles by EuripidesThe Iliad by HomerThe Syrian Goddess by LucianA True Story by LucianThe Works of Lucian of Samosata by LucianThe Mimes of the Courtesans by LucianOf the Nature of Things by LucretiusThe Love Books by OvidMetamorphoses by OvidThe Satyricon by PetroniusThe Seventh Letter by PlatoThe Statesman by PlatoLaws by PlatoPhilebus by PlatoThe Apology by PlatoCritias by PlatoCrito by PlatoEuthyphro by PlatoTimaeus by PlatoEuthydemus by PlatoParmenides by PlatoThe Republic by PlatoSymposium by PlatoTheaetetus by PlatoThe Six Enneads by PlotinusPlutarch’s Lives by PlutarchThe Golden Verses of Pythagoras by PythagorasThe Poems of Sappho by SapphoOn the Shortness of Life by SENECAOn Benefits by SENECADialogues by SENECAThe Trachiniae by SophoclesAjax by SophoclesAntigone by SophoclesThe History of the Peloponnesian War by ThucydidesThe Eclogues by Virgil Read more
The Red Queen: A Novel (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels Book 2)
Philippa Gregory
The inspiration for the critically acclaimed Starz miniseries The White Queen, #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings to life Margaret Beaufort, heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, who charts her way through treacherous alliances to take control of the English throne.Margaret Beaufort never surrenders her belief that her Lancaster house is the true ruler of England, and that she has a great destiny before her. Married to a man twice her age, quickly widowed, and a mother at only fourteen, Margaret is determined to turn her lonely life into a triumph. She sets her heart on putting her son on the throne of England regardless of the cost to herself, to England, and even to the little boy. Disregarding rival heirs and the overwhelming power of the York dynasty, she names him Henry, like the king; sends him into exile; and pledges him in marriage to her enemy Elizabeth of York’s daughter. As the political tides constantly move and shift, Margaret masterminds one of the greatest rebellions of all time—all the while knowing that her son has grown to manhood, recruited an army, and awaits his opportunity to win the greatest prize in all of England. The Red Queen is a novel of conspiracy, passion, and coldhearted ambition, the story of a proud and determined woman who believes that she alone is destined, by her piety and lineage, to shape the course of history. Read more
Exploring J.r.r. Tolkien's "the Hobbit"
Corey Olsen
Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is an in-depth look at one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century, uncovering its secrets and delights. “An admirable and thought-provoking consideration of the underlying themes of The Hobbit, following the there-and-back-again progress from its famous first line on through to Bilbo's return home at the story's end.” —Douglas A. Anderson, author of The Annotated HobbitA fun, thoughtful, and insightful companion volume designed to bring a thorough and original new reading of this great work to a general audience, Tolkien scholar Corey Olsen takes readers on a thorough journey through The Hobbit chapter by chapter, revealing the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the transformation within the life of Bilbo Baggins. Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a book that will make the classic fantasy story come alive for readers as never before.“Worthy of your tightly guarded dragon’s treasure. . . . Indispensable.” —Boston Globe“Sharing Corey Olsen’s personal view of The Hobbit is like having a long conversation with someone who shares the love of a favorite book and is excited to talk about it. His exploration of the journey of Bilbo Baggins will encourage readers to think more deeply about Tolkien’s classic tale.” —Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, authors of The Art of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien Read more