Brad Leithauser

"From the widely acclaimed poet, novelist, critic, and scholar, a lucid and edifying exploration of the building blocks of poetry and how they've been used over the centuries to assemble the most imperishable poems. We treasure our greatest poetry, Brad Leithauser reminds us in these pages, "not for its what but its how." In chapters on everything from iambic pentameter to how stanzas are put together to "rhyme and the way we really talk," Leithauser...

The scenery of Iceland, the South seas, and the American South, the awakening of first love, and the meaning of speech are some of the topics treated in this collection of poems.

A political satire on an island in the North Atlantic. The place is home to stubbornly independent Norsemen who are in danger of succumbing to drugs, pop music, restless youth--and the three political consultants imported from the U.S. to unseat Hannibal Hannibalsson, the president who is seeking re-election. He is the candidate who wants Freeland to remain true to itself. By the author of Seaward.

In his first collection of essays and criticism, the celebrated poet and novelist focuses on subjects exceptionally close to his heart. He considers the ghost story as a literary form and through the prism of two of its prominent practitioners - Henry James and M.R. James. He writes about the spiritual world of Flannery O'Connor, the alternate universe of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, the mind of H.G. Wells. He brilliantly makes clear for the layperson...

The story of a famous chess match played between a man and a computer chess program at M.I.T. back in 1993.

The cycle follows the life of Kristin Lavransdatter, a fictitious Norwegian woman living in the 14th century. Kristin grows up in Sil in Gudbrandsdalen, the daughter of a well-respected and affluent farmer. She experiences a number of conflicts in her relationships with her parents, and her husband Erlend, in medieval Norway. She finds comfort and conciliation in her Catholic faith.