10,807 articles
The Poetics of Old Russian Literature
The Poetics of Old Russian Literature (Поэтика древнерусской литературы) is a 1967 monograph by Dmitry Likhachev analyzing the artistic system of Russian literature from the tenth to the seventeenth century.
The Poisonwood Bible
The Poisonwood Bible is Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 novel about the family of Baptist missionary Nathan Price in the Belgian Congo from 1959, narrated by his wife and four daughters; a political allegory of American intervention, an Oprah's Book Club pick and Pulitzer nominee.
The Polar Express
The Polar Express (2004) is Robert Zemeckis's performance-capture Christmas film adapted from Chris Van Allsburg's 1985 Caldecott book, starring Tom Hanks in six roles; a box-office disappointment that became a profitable annual holiday reissue.
The Political Unconscious
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act is a 1981 book by Fredric Jameson, arguing that every narrative responds to social and historical conflicts.
The Poor Christ of Bomba
The Poor Christ of Bomba (Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba) is a satirical anticolonial novel by the Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti, published in Paris in 1956.
The Poor Man's Son
The Poor Man's Son (Le Fils du pauvre) is an autobiographical novel by Mouloud Feraoun, which recounts Fouroulou Menrad's journey through the colonial system to become a teacher.
The Poor Musician
The Poor Musician (Der arme Spielmann) is a novella by Austrian writer Franz Grillparzer about Jakob, a poor street fiddler in Vienna pursuing the Romantic ideal of absolute music.
The Poor Wife
The Poor Wife (빈처, Bincheo) is a short story by Korean writer Hyun Jin-geon, published in the magazine Gaebyeok in January 1921, credited with starting the serious 1920s Korean short story.
The Poppy War
The Poppy War is a 2018 epic fantasy novel by R. F. Kuang, following war orphan Fang Runin through an elite military academy and into a devastating war.
The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James novel, The Portrait of a Lady (1881), about American heiress Isabel Archer in Europe. Serialized in Macmillan's and the Atlantic, revised for the 1908 New York Edition, adapted by Jane Campion in 1996.
The Possibility of an Island
The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilité d'une île) is a 2005 novel by Michel Houellebecq, his fourth, following a cynical comedian and his clones two thousand years later.
The Post Horse Curse
The Post Horse Curse (Yeokma) is a 1948 short story by Korean writer Kim Tong-ni, set at Hwagae Market and tracing three generations fated to a wandering life.
The Power (Alderman novel)
The Power (2016) is Naomi Alderman's speculative fiction novel in which women worldwide develop the ability to electrocute at will. Frame narrative by Neil Adam Armon; won the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction; adapted for Amazon Prime Video.
The Power and the Glory
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene's 1940 novel (US title The Labyrinthine Ways), follows a fugitive whisky priest in Tabasco, Mexico, during the anticlerical persecution of the Cristero era; it won the Hawthornden Prize and drew a 1953 Holy Office verdict.
The Power of One (novel)
The Power of One (1989) is Bryce Courtenay's debut novel about Peekay, an English boy in 1939-1951 South Africa who survives bullying, learns boxing, and comes of age as apartheid begins; sequel Tandia, 1992 film.
The Power of Six
The Power of Six (2011) is the second Lorien Legacies young adult science fiction novel by Pittacus Lore, pseudonym of James Frey with Jobie Hughes. It alternates between John (Number Four) on the run in the US and Marina (Number Seven) hiding in Spain, and reached number one on the New York Times best seller list.
The Praise of Folly
The Praise of Folly (Moriae Encomium) is a 1509 satirical oration by the Dutch humanist Erasmus, in which Folly exposes the follies of society and the church.
The Prayer of Jabez
The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson's 2000 Multnomah devotional (with David Kopp) on 1 Chronicles 4:9-10; sold 9.2 million copies in 17 languages, topped the NYT Advice list, and drew evangelical criticism as a blessing formula.
The Precious Sword
The Precious Sword (宝剑记) is a 52-scene Ming dynasty drama by Li Kaixian, completed in 1547, retelling the Water Margin hero Lin Chong as political drama.
The Precipice
The Precipice (Russian: Обрыв, Obryv) is an 1869 novel by Ivan Goncharov, his third and final, conceived in 1849 and taking about twenty years to complete.
The Predicament
The Predicament is William Boyd's 2025 spy novel, second in the Gabriel Dax trilogy after Gabriel's Moon, set in 1963 Guatemala and West Berlin as the amateur MI6 agent uncovers a plot against JFK.
The Prelude
The Prelude is William Wordsworth's autobiographical epic in blank verse on the growth of a poet's mind, begun 1799, completed 1805, revised until 1839, and published posthumously in 1850; the 1805 text appeared only in 1926.
The Prespa Bells
The Prespa Bells (Преспанските камбани) is a 1954 historical novel by Bulgarian writer Dimitar Talev, the second book of his tetralogy about the Bulgarian liberation struggles in Macedonia.
The Prestige
The Prestige is Christopher Priest's 1995 World Fantasy Award-winning epistolary novel about rival Victorian magicians Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, adapted in 2006 into Christopher Nolan's Oscar-nominated film.
The Price of Salt
The Price of Salt (1952), republished as Carol, is Patricia Highsmith's only openly lesbian novel, published pseudonymously as Claire Morgan; it follows Therese Belivet and Carol Aird, is noted as the first lesbian novel with a happy ending, and inspired the 2015 film Carol.
The Prick of Conscience
The Prick of Conscience (Stimulus Conscientiae) is a Middle English devotional poem of about 9,600 lines, written anonymously in northern England in the fourteenth century.
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister is an 1876 novel by Anthony Trollope, part of his Palliser series, pairing a reluctant coalition government with the marriage of Emily Wharton.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (novel)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is Muriel Spark's 1961 novel about a charismatic, fascist-sympathizing teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in 1930s Edinburgh, her six-pupil Brodie set, Sandy Stranger's betrayal, and its flashforward narrative; adapted into the 1969 Oscar-winning film with Maggie Smith.
The Prince and the Pauper
The Prince and the Pauper is Mark Twain's 1881 historical novel, his first, in which Tom Canty, a beggar boy, and Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII, trade places in 1547 Tudor England, exploring identity, poverty, and justice through an enduring lookalike plot.
The Prince of Tides (novel)
The Prince of Tides is Pat Conroy's 1986 Houghton Mifflin novel about Tom Wingo, who recounts his South Carolina family's traumatic history to his twin sister Savannah's psychiatrist Susan Lowenstein; a bestseller adapted into Barbra Streisand's 1991 film with Nick Nolte.