The award-winning novels of Annie Ernaux are controversial, innovative, and address the topical issues of gender and social class. Surprisingly, there has been no major study of her work, despite the fact that it is increasingly taught and has been widely translated. This book fills that gap by presenting Ernaux's work through a range of readings: those of the author herself, those of academics, of reviewers and of 'ordinary' readers. Ernaux's own curiosity about the relationship between writing and the reality she is describing leads her to adopt a self-reflective approach to the narration of her life experience. This stimulating introduction to her work reflects both on the relationship between writing and identity in general terms, and specifically on the process of writing literary criticism. In the final chapter the impersonal register of academic writing is extended by a more personal dialogue with Ernaux's texts. What emerges is a new critical method that explores the multiple relationships between readers and texts.
The first work in English on Annie Ernaux, this book goes far beyond traditional analyses to address the fundamental question of critical writing and to present a new methodology for the study of literary texts. It is thus essential reading for those interested in French literature, critical theory, gender and cultural studies.

Credit Scoring and Its Applications is recognized as the bible of credit scoring. It contains a comprehensive review of the objectives, methods, and practical implementation of credit and behavioral scoring. The authors review principles of the statistical and operations research methods used in building scorecards, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The book contains a description of practical problems encountered in building, using, and monitoring scorecards and examines some of the country-specific issues in bankruptcy, equal opportunities, and privacy legislation. It contains a discussion of economic theories of consumers' use of credit, and readers will gain an understanding of what lending institutions seek to achieve by using credit scoring and the changes in their objectives. New to the second edition are: lessons that can be learned for operations research model building from the global financial crisis current applications of scoring discussions on the Basel Accords and their requirements for scoring new methods for scorecard building and new expanded sections on ways of measuring scorecard performance, and survival analysis for credit scoring. Other unique features include methods of monitoring scorecards and deciding when to update them, as well as different applications of scoring, including direct marketing, profit scoring, tax inspection, prisoner release, and payment of fines.