NICHOLAS ROYLE

Bennett and Royle approach their subject by way of literary works themselves (a poem by Emily Dickinson, a passage from Shakespeare, a novel by Salman Rushdie), rather than by way of abstract theoretical ideas and isms. In 32 short chapters they focus on a range of familiar-looking terms (character, the author, voice, narrative) as well as less obvious ones (laughter, pleasure, ghosts, secrets) in order to show why such literary texts are so compelling. The third edition updates and expands on earlier editions, and includes new chapters. This book avoids what is so frequently tiresome or intimidating about 'theory', offering instead an introduction that is consistently entertaining, thought provoking and surprising.

In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucid explanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability, iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a new enlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to a range of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals and animality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, and mourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as a brilliantly imaginative and often very funny writer. Other critical introductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature and genealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, in particular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature in Derrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based on detailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of such writers as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B.Shelley, Poe, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view that deconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways in which "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns, such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility and justice, law and democracy.

The nations favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its twelfth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover or, more accurately, by its title. This critically acclaimed series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editors brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume.

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its twelfth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or, more accurately, by its title. This critically acclaimed series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume.