The novelist and critic Christine Brooke-Rose reflects on her own fictional craft and turns her well-developed analytic abilities on other writers fictional and critical, from Hawthorne to Pound to Bloom and Derrida, in an attempt to investigate those difficult border zones between the 'invented' and the 'real'. The result is an extended meditation in a highly personal idiom, on the creative act and its relation to modern theoretical writing and thinking. Like her fiction, Professor Brooke-Rose's criticism is self-consciously experimental, trying out and discarding ideas, adopting others. Her linguistic prowess, her uncommon role as a recognised writer of fiction and theory and the relevance of her work to the feminist and other other movements, all contribute to the interest of this unusual sequence of essays.

A festschrift, as defined by Merriam-Webster online, is "a volume of writings by different authors presented as a tribute or memorial especially to a scholar." The writer feted in the Verbivoracious flagship festschrift was a scholar who also happened to be one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century (and certainly for the first decade of the 21st century). This collection contains essays, homages, and stories inspired by the work of Christine Brooke-Rose, arranged in the publication order of her books, commencing with the poem Gold (reprinted for the first time here), and concluding with Life, End of. The writers featured are an eclectic mix1 of critics, storytellers, ardent readers, academics, pasticheurs, homageurs, and people coerced to read the works of Christine Brooke-Rose for the sole purpose of contributing to this festschrift. Those not yet acquainted with her work should find sufficient entry points to her varying, often complex, sometimes cryptic, always playful, methods. Unswerving converts to her constraints will find many rapturous moments in the numerous flawlessly executed fictions included.

"The Brooke-Rose Omnibus" brings together four unexpected novels: "Out", a science-fiction vision of a world surviving catastrophe; "Such", in which a three-minute heart massage is developed into a poetic and funny narrative; "Between", a glittering experience of the multiplicity of language; and "Thru", a novel in which text and typography assume a life of their own. Linking them all is wit, inventiveness and the sharply focused intelligence of Christine Brooke-Rose, a great European humanist writer.

She is eighty. Facing death, she becomes 'a cruising mind', lost in sequences of unabstract comic detail, in - as the title implies - a kind of index, rigid, arbitrary, pointing backwards into the lived text. The head top leans against the bathroom mirror so that the looking glass becomes a feeling glass. She is getting worse day by day, and yet she goes on, deeper into meaning, into non-meaning, with a kind of wry eagerness. She is not disappointed with her life. In order to distract herself, to place herself, she attends to what the media say about the world as if what they say was actually the world. She reflects on her own career, on her experiments with narrative, and on the narrative she is writing here: therapy, fun, but anything else, anything more? What is its purpose, and what the purpose of the life that lives it in the writing? She discovers how, as in fiction, as in any form of experiment, the difficulty for the handicapped is less the handicap than other people, and they too have their lives and handicaps. She becomes like them, she becomes one of them, an other person.Reasserting herself, at the centre of the book, in a mock-technical lecture from a character to an author who is not interested, she comes to accept that her experiments in narrative are like pain-killers, and that they no longer matter, like life.

The Battle of Reichenfels has been fought and lost. The army is in flight. The enemy is expected to arrive in town at any moment. A soldier, carrying a parcel under his arm, is wandering through an unknown town. All the streets look the same, and he cannot remember the name of one where he was supposed to meet the man who had agreed to take the parcel. But he must deliver the parcel or at least get rid of it... A brilliant work from one of the finest exponents of the Nouveau Roman, In the Labyrinth showcases an inventive, hypnotic style which creates an uncanny atmosphere of deja vu, yet undermines the reader's expectations at every turn.

The novelist and critic Christine Brooke-Rose reflects on her own fictional craft and turns her well-developed analytic abilities on other writers fictional and critical, from Hawthorne and Pound to Bloom and Derrida, in an attempt to investigate those difficult border zones between the "invented" and the "real." The result is an extended meditation, in a highly personal idiom, on the creative act and its relation to modern theoretical writing and thinking. Like her fiction, Professor Brooke-Rose's criticism is self-consciously experimental, trying out and discarding ideas, adopting others. Her linguistic prowess, her uncommon role as a recognized writer of fiction and theory, and the relevance of her work to the feminist and other modern movements, all contribute to the interest of this unusual sequence of essays. Christine Brooke-Rose, formerly a professor at the Universite de Paris, and now retired, lives in France. She is the author of several works of literary criticism and a number of novels, including Amalgamemnon and Xorander.

Umberto Eco, international bestselling novelist and literary theorist, here brings together these two roles in a provocative discussion of the vexed question of literary interpretation. The limits of interpretation - what a text can actually be said to mean - are of double interest to a semiotician whose own novels' intriguing complexity has provoked his readers into intense speculation as to their meaning. Eco's discussion ranges from Dante to The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum to Chomsky and Derrida, and bears all the hallmarks of his personal style. Three of the world's leading figures in philosophy, literary theory and criticism take up the challenge of entering into debate with Eco on the question of interpretation. Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler and Christine Brooke-Rose each add a distinctive perspective on this contentious topic, contributing to an exchange of ideas between some of the foremost theorists in the field. The work is intended for students and scholars of literary theory and philosophy (especially semiotics).

This 1981 book is a study of wide range of fiction, from short stories to tales of horror, from fairy-tales and romances to science fiction, to which the rather loose term 'fantastic' has been applied. Cutting across this wide field, Professor Brooke-Rose examines in a clear and precise way the essential differences between these types of narrative against the background of realistic fiction. In doing so, she employs many of the methods of modern literary theory from Russian formalism to structuralism, while at the same time bringing to these approaches a sharp critical intuition and sound common sense of her own. The range of texts considered is broad: from Poe and James to Tolkien; from Flann O'Brien to the American postmodernism. This book should prove a source of stimulation to all teachers and students of modern literary theory and genre, as well as those interested in 'fantastic' literature.

The venerable Adena Tor has lost a relic. Not just any relic but one which will change the course of the war. As the casualties rise and the armies are beaten back, the Elders agree to the formation of a group of adventurers who will attempt to regain the relic against overwhelming odds. The most promising recruits are chosen, each of them having special abilities not seen in decades and the search is on. Follow Sarian and the others as they battle against the forces of the Defiler. New skills are taught to them along the way but will all of this be enough? Can the quest group find and hold the relic which they seek long enough to return it? Will betrayals from within damage the New World Alliance beyond recovery? Can the League of Sarian triumph over evil?

"Career and Finances" is the third in the "Little Book, Big Prayers" 4-book series. Learn how to declare the scriptures over your career and finances while building your faith and confidence in God. You can receive His guidance and direction for your career path. Your life can change from indebtedness and lack, to prosperity and well-being when you embrace the covenant promises found in the word or God. Declaring the word of God will help you: --Experience more commitment and confidence --Learn to make better decisions about your career & finances --Learn the significance of putting God first in your life --Overcome insecurity and understand & fulfill your purpose --Experience natural and spiritual promotion & blessings --Understand the importance of service & stewardship This book will help you exercise your faith to experience the transforming power of God over your circumstances. Declare the scripture-based affirmations that God is the Lord, He is your source, and you choose His will for your life. Gain more faith in His promises of protection, provision, healing and deliverance. Through prayer you have power to change what you think, say and do in any circumstance. God wants you to experience spiritual growth and make better decisions about your career, your finances and your life.

"Mental and Physical Wholeness" is the second in the "Little Book, Big Prayers" 4-book series. Speaking scriptural prayers over your circumstances will facilitate spiritual growth while enhancing your prayer life. Learn how to pray for deliverance and healing from emotional or physical challenges. Say what God says about you. Embrace what God says about you to transition from brokenness to mental and physical health and well-being. You can: --Change what you think, say and do about your circumstances -Agree with God to overcoming addiction, rejection and abuse --Develop and experience healthy relationships --Experience mental & physical health, peace, success and liberty The life-changing, transforming power of God will help you believe the word of God--the scriptures--to change you life. Your heart and mind can be unified to the truth about who you are and what you can have. When you come to the knowledge of the truth you will have faith to believe that all things are possible. When you hear, read and believe the word, you develop faith in the word. You can draw on your faith to see blessing, healing, deliverance and increase manifest into your life.