Sartre for Beginners

Lyrical and Critical Essays

"Here now, for the first time in a complete English translation, we have Camus's three little volumes of essays, plus a selection of his critical comments on literature and his own place in it. As might be expected, the main interest of these writings is

Notebooks, 1935-1951

The musings and sketches of Albert Camus offer insight into the molding and working of a creative mind. Covering ground form young adulthood to the height of Camus's career, these notebooks contain sketches for future works, excerpts from favorite books,

Barthes for Beginners

Roland Barthes is best known as a semiologist, a student of the science of signs. This sees human beings primarily as communicating animals. It looks at the way they use language, clothes, gestures, hair styles, visual images, shapes and colour to convey

Introducing Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein has somehow captured the popular imagination as the modern Socrates, the fascinating and attractive master of enigmatic logic. But what did Wittgenstein really say?

Freud for Beginners

The Beginner Books -- "Their cartoon format and irreverent wit make difficult ideas accessible and entertaining." -- NewsdayEverything you need to know about neurosis, libido, ego, and id -- but somehow it slipped your mind.Freud for Beginners is a perfec

Introducing Genetics

Genetics is the newest of all sciences - nothing useful was known about inheritance until just over a century ago. Now genetics is exploding, and before long we will have the complete code, written in three thousand million letters of DNA, of what makes a

Introducing Islam

Islam is one of the world's great monotheistic religions. Islamic culture, spanning 1,500 years, has produced some of the finest achievements of humanity. Yet the religion followed by a fifth of humankind, including millions from diverse ethnic background

Introducing Critical Theory

'Introducing Critical Theory' provides a route through the tangled jungle of competing theories. It puts into context recent developments by situating them within the longer-term tradition of critical analysis - back to the rise of Marxism.

Joyce for Beginners

James Joyce is one of the key innovators of modernism, along with such figures as Picasso, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. However, a myth of Joyce's difficulty has taken root which discourages many readers from approaching his work. This is a great pity, beca