Books like Brewer's Curious Titles by Ian Crofton

Long recognized as the outstanding reference on world literature, Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia is the one against which all others are measured, and is the single most complete one-volume encyclopedia available for those with a serious interest in the subject. The entries explore all aspects of literature from around the world: biographies of poets and playwrights, novelists and belletrists; plot synopses and character sketches from important works; historical data on literary schools, movements, terms, and awards; myths and legends; and more. Completely revised and updated, this fourth edition captures the diversity of today's canon, with greater attention to African-American, Eastern, Middle Eastern, African, South American, Eastern European, and women's literature. For nearly fifty years, William Rose Benet and the editors who succeeded him have upheld the level of quality that distinguished the original Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. Like its predecessors, this new edition will teach and delight, illuminate and expound, and enrich the pleasure of reading in countless ways.

In 19th‑century England, Mary Anning—marked for greatness after a lightning strike as an infant—discovers a fossil near her home, sparking conflict and change in religious, scientific, and academic circles.

Uncover the hidden history of human evolution and the dark cover-up in scientific research.

John Brewer's landmark book shows us how English artists, amateurs, entrepreneurs, and audiences developed a culture that is still celebrated for its wit and brilliance. Brewer's purpose is to show how literature, painting, music, and the theater related to a public increasingly avid for them; how artists used, or were used by, publishers, plagiarists, impresarios, and managers; and how contemporary ideas of taste combined with patriotic fervor and shrewdly managed commerce to create a vibrant, dynamic national culture. In Brewer's transforming analysis, we see revealed a picture of English eighteenth-century art and literature that is less familiar but more surprising, more various, and more convincing than any we have seen before.