Paralyzed and unable to speak, a newspaper publisher reviews his life from a hospital bed and is able to find a new understanding.

This well-established international series examines major areas of basic and clinical research within neuroscience, as well as emerging and promising subfields. This volume on the neurosciences, neurology, and literature vividly shows how science and the humanities can come together --- and have come together in the past. Its sections provide a new, broad look at these interactions, which have received surprisingly little attention in the past. Experts in the field cover literature as a window to neurological and scientific zeitgeists, theories of brain and mind in literature, famous authors and their suspected neurological disorders, and how neurological disorders and treatments have been described in literature. In addition, a myriad of other topics are covered, including some on famous authors whose important connections to the neurosciences have been overlooked (e.g., Roget, of Thesaurus fame), famous neuroscientists who should also be associated with literature, and some overlooked scientific and medical men who helped others produce great literary works (e,g., Bram Stoker's Dracula). There has not been a volume with this coverage in the past, and the connections it provides should prove fascinating to individuals in science, medicine, history, literature, and various other disciplines. - This book looks at literature, medicine, and the brain sciences both historically and in the light of the newest scholarly discoveries and insights

The Widow is the story of two outcasts and their fatal encounter. One is the widow herself, Tati. Still young, she’s never had an easy time of it, but she’s not the kind to complain. Tati lives with her father-in-law on the family farm, putting up with his sexual attentions, working her fingers to the bone, improving the property and knowing all the time that her late husband’s sister is scheming to kick her out and take the house back. The other is a killer. Just out of prison and in search of a new life, Jean meets up with Tati, who hires him as a handyman and then takes him to bed. Things are looking up, at least until Jean falls hard for the girl next door. The Widow was published in the same year as Camus’ The Stranger, and André Gide judged it the superior book. It is Georges Simenon’s most powerful and disturbing exploration of the bond between death and desire.

For six decades, writer and editor Robert A. Parker has followed up each book he reads, mainly novels, with an evaluation of that book. His comments are informed by his Jesuit upbringing but also by an independent critical view that balances a moral and literary sensibility. In this sixth of six volumes, the authors covered range from Ignazio Silone to Emile Zola. They include Solzhenitsyn, Spark, Stegner, Styron, Tanizaki, Tolstoy, Turow, Unsworth, Updike, Vargas Llosa, Warren, Waugh, and Wilder. The commentaries are listed alphabetically by author, and the books by the date of publication. At least 115 authors are included in this volume, some represented by one book, some by five or more. The writers here represent a broad range of writing styles, cultural influences, and moral philosophies. And all are rated on their literary achievement, on plot, character, and setting, plus the moral, ethical, and spiritual values of mankind. Here, the meaning of literature is measured against the meaning of life.

Nadya Aisenberg discusses the potentialities of the crime novel, its implications, principles, and scope, and its analogy of myth and the fairy tale. She proposes that the detective story and the thriller have made an unacknowledged contribution to "serious" literature. Her discussion of Dickens, Conrad, and Green indicate that each borrowed many important ingredients from the formulaic novel.

For nearly a century, the work of Belgian crime writer and psychological novelist Georges Simenon, creator of Chief Inspector Maigret, has captivated readers worldwide. This investigation situates Simenon's work in its historical context and interprets it as a reaction to shifting gender relations in Western society. Simenon's compelling narratives capture the anxieties of men whose patriarchal position was under threat in an era of insurgent feminist movements. These concerns are also evident in Simenon's pervasive preoccupation with sexuality, as well as his political stance that stems from his petit-bourgeois upbringing. This groundbreaking study includes interwoven commentary on all 191 novels Simenon published under his own name, including several that have never been translated into English, as well as a number of short stories and several pseudonymous works.

This book captures the intensity of the relationship between writers and their typewriters from the 1880s, when the machine was first commercialized, to the 1980s, when word-processing superseded it. Drawing on examples from the United States, Britain, Europe, and Australia, The Typewriter Century focuses on "celebrity writers," including Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, and Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote prolifically and mechanically, developing routines in which typing, handwriting, and dictation were each allotted important functions. The typewriter de-personalized the text; the office typewriter bureaucratized it. At the same time, some authors found a new and disturbing distance between themselves and their compositions while others believed the typewriter facilitated spontaneous and automatic typing. The Typewriter Century provides a cultural history of the typewriter, outlining the ways in which it can be considered an agent of change as well as demonstrating how it influenced all writers, canonical and otherwise.

For 150 years the French public and literati have enjoyed a love affair with crime fiction. This book investigates the nature of this relationship and how through periods of dramatic social and political change in France it has flourished. It challenges the conventional view of a popular genre feeding a niche market, depicting crime fiction instead as a field of creative endeavour, which has gradually matured into one of considerable literary fertility. By inviting us to share secrets and crack codes, creating suspense and (at times) not shirking from presenting horrific events in graphic language, the crime story brings into play the intellect and emotions of its readership. This book explores both this intrinsic literary value of the crime novel and its extrinsic witness to historical events and cultural trends, arguing that these apparently distinct aspects are in fact dynamic, interrelated parts of the same whole. This blend of cultural history with literary analysis allows for the discussion of themes such as politics, memory, the urban environment and youth cultures, mixed with case studies of major French crime writers, including Gaston Leroux, Georges Simenon, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Daniel Pennac and Fred Vargas.

Overviews of writers and works from the ancient Greeks through the 20th century, written by subject experts. Each author entry provides a detailed overview of the writer's life and works. Work entries cover a particular piece of world literature in detail.