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• Jonathan Bate. 2010. English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press)
• Jonathan D Culler. 2011. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University)
• David Crystal. 2005. The Stories of English (Abrams)
• George Levine. 2008. How to Read the Victorian Novel (Wiley-Blackwell)

In terms of plays, poetry and novels read outside of your syllabus and from a range of time periods. Explore literature that follows your own interests, which you are keen to engage in discussion about. Some ideas may be: 

• The Iliad or The Odyssey by Homer
• Homeric translations/ retellings such as: 
  • The Iliad: The Verse Translation by Alexander Pope 
  • The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
  • ‘Siren Song’ by Margaret Atwood 
  • A New Retelling: Greek Myths by Charlotte Higgins
• The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 
• The Picture of Dorian Grey and other works by Oscar Wilde 
• Shakespeare, perhaps some of his lesser-known plays such as Julius Caesar, Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Troilus and Cressida.
• Victorian writers such as: George Eliot, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Modern writers such as: W.H.Auden, T.S Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W.B Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath 
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• A Thousand Splendid Suns & The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• Lost Ladies of Lit- Amy Helmes & Kim Askew
• The History of Literature - Jackie Wilson
• Approaching Shakespeare - University of Oxford Podcasts 
• The Paris Review

• The Poetry Foundation 
• Great Writers Inspire
• 10-minute Book Club - Faculty of English, University of Oxford 
• The Forum - Classical Literature: Reading Between the Lines 
• The Poetry Society 
• The Times Literary Supplement 

TED Talks (literary related) e.g., 'Shakespeare is Everywhere'.