In his essays, Walter Benjamin sought to understand the nature of modernity. He drew on Marxism but was not contained by it, ranging across literature, art, popular culture, even Jewish mysticism.
What constitutes righteous action in the face of moral ambiguity and the inevitability of violence? This question is at the heart of The Bhagavad Gita.
The Harp in the South has been published in 37 languages since 1948. Ruth Park was compared to Dickens for her lively portrayal of Sydney’s slums. But what does the character of Charlie Roche reveal?
Simone Weil is one of the 20th century’s most remarkable, paradoxical figures. The Need for Roots, published in the year she died at just 34, is a tour de force of ethics and political philosophy.
The ‘divine right of kings’ may sound obsolete, but it has resonances today. Richard II asks what it means to have power, to take power – and what we’re left with when it’s gone.
In Thomas Hardy’s novel The Woodlanders, the trees sing. Hardy’s exploration of the relationship between humans and trees resonates in an epoch of environmental catastrophe.
First published in 1897, Dracula is the best-known vampire story in English. It has been endlessly adapted for screen, but today’s stories tend to dilute the horror at the novel’s heart.
A UK university has attached a trigger warning to Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen’s biting satire, for ‘toxic relationships’. Ironically, Jodi McAlister loves it for the gentle romance at its centre.
Published in 1821, Thomas De Quincey’s book created the archetype of the drug addict as cultural figure. Part story, part memoir, part essay, it mines the highs and lows of addiction.
North and South is a sensitive, complex, and controversial account of the many tensions that were tearing Britain apart in the heart of the 19th century.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about morality and responsibility. Do the best of us have a repressed bad side, just waiting to get out?
The possibilities of ‘more human than human’ artificial intelligence and the dangers of playing God and are not new – they’re the subjects of one of the world’s first science-fiction novels.
Hamlet, the tormented prince of Denmark, embodies our own struggles: between reason and violence, courage and inaction. He is a modern character in an endlessly quotable play.