The Norton Introduction to Literature: Portable Edition

Over the summer I took an online poetry and short story English class, and this book was required. Many reviewers posted how they ended up with the wrong edition (this is the PORTABLE edition), but if they purchased this for a class, i'm pretty sure somewhere on the syllabus it specified which was needed. I double checked my teacher's syllabus, and purchased the correct one. While I have little to no interest in both poetry and short stories (probably a bad idea for me to take this class, oh well), this book allowed me to do great in the class, and I learned a lot. The rental process went great, and i'd recommend this to anyone who is interested in a vast collection of stories from many different authors and poets!

I did take the course for college awhile back. This book is very comprehensive and a very good read. It was so much reading so be prepared if you take this coliege course because you literally have a lot of material to cover. It was very interesting and I do recommend reading even though it is a thick book. It went from one era to the next. You get to read different styles of writing and if you like to read this has so many different writers, then you'll love it.

Extremely high quality made book with a nice cover for a paperback. Thick with some great content and descriptions/definitions for some very core and critical concepts. Great book for English majors or not. Highly recommend it to teachers. Pages are fairly thin, so be careful.

Needed this book for a college English course. The past reviews state this but I will mention it again. There are three versions: portable, short and full. This one is the short version. As I stated, I had to buy this book, but I do enjoy the content I've read so far. Consists of poems and short stories from notable authors such as Hemingway, Joyce, Baldwin, Sherman Alexie, and many more. I hope to read more and update this review later on.

Purchased from Wayland Baptist University Bookstore as a textbook when my order from an amazon seller never arrived. Nevertheless, this is a great read and I'll keep it as such. Not only did we navigate the reading comprehension course together, I ended up delighted in meeting new authors and a greater love for the written word.

It is a required textbook for English Lit. this semester. I think it is like every other textbook for a class that is required that I am not very interested in taking; over priced and way too thick. Just looking at the outside of the book makes me cringe to think what this class is going to contain. The font is too small to be read comfortably and much of the information is way over my head. This book contains excerpts from Shakespeare, Faulkner, and William Blake for crying out loud. Ugh, Just when I thought I couldn't feel any stupider, I opened this textbook and **poof** another hope crushed.

This book works great. I already know this book would not be in mint condition but I was not looking for one that was. This book does what I need it to do and I can read everything without any difficulty. There is a few pencil markings and folded pages but I knew that I was going to highlight this book so I didn't need perfection just readable and affordable. It was what I needed thank you.

I bought this for a class. What a terrible book! Critical theory is such nonsense. It's like someone who lacks any actual scientific skill trying to make literature into a science (coming from someone who majored in 3 separate scientific fields in 3 separate degrees). If you're taking a class that requires a book like this, here's my advice: Write whatever nonsense comes to mind, sprinkle in a few catchphrases that sound like the critical approach of interest (e.g. make a few comparisons of opposites to make it demonstrate "duality"). Someone will find a way that it's profound, insightful, and fits into one of their arbitrary schools of critical theory.

This is a great book to have as part of the Norton series on literature. There is so much information in this book. A great book for people interested in literature.