Early in Mark Twain"s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we learn about Tom Sawyer"s gang and his "deep laid" plans, for Tom and his innr circle of friends dedicate one memorable occasion to working out such details: the name of the gang, its objectives, its general line of business-its modus operandi. But there are problems, namely, problems of interpretation. After all, not everybody defines "gang" the same way These interpretive problems are not insurmountable, so we discover, but they are real, at least for a few enchanted moments in the narrative: "Now" says Ben Rogers, "what"s the line of business of this Gang?" "Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said. "But who are we going to rob?-houses, or cattle, or-" "Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain"t robbery; it"s burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain"t burglars. That ain"t no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money." "Must we always kill the people?" "Oh, certainly It"s best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it"s considered best to kill them-except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they"re ransomed." "Ransomed? What"s that?" "I don"t know But that"s what they do. I"ve seen it in books; and so of course that"s what we"ve go to do." "But how can we do it if we don"t know what it is?" "Why, blame it all, we"ve got to do it. Don"t I tell you it"s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what"s in the books, and get thins all muddled up?" It is dlfficult to argue that Tom SawyeL under any circumstances, is a reliable reader of literary texts. Yet anddst this already "muddled up" but delightfully humorous conversation, Tom is right about one thing: books carry a certain cultural authority They can and do influence the way a person understands human experience, even if that same person makes no claim to be an avid reader. Tom Sawyer is certainly not the model reader, nor was he ever the model student. But his cocksure knowledge of books, however boyishly obtained, is telling nonetheless. Readers are still intensely interested in understanding "what"s in the books." It is a task, in fact, made all the richer and at the same time more difficult, given the great variety of critical approaches to lit6rary texts, and the decades of theoretical debates, political wrangling, and culture wars. In her book West of Everything, Jane Tompkins has accurately described such conflicts in the discipline as "academic shootouts" (230). Even in the late afternoon of theory, however, the dust has not settled. Terry Eagleton"s admonition is as true now as it was when he first offered it: "Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other peoPle"s theories and an oblivion of one"s own" (Literary Theom viii). But just what constitutes "theory" and its various uses is still a hotly debated subject, yet one worth pursuing. Not all critics share Eagleton"s views on the subject. Denii Donoghue asserts, "If theory is merely experimental of . as we say, heuristic, we do well to take it to mind if not to heart, and give it a run for whatever money we risk on it. But if it is offered to us as a creed or a vision or a doctrine, we should approach it much more skeptically and estimat6 the consequence of taking it to heart and soul." In Shakespearean criticism, for instance, Donoghue cont6nds that Eagleton"s committhents to "theory" have amounted to what he calls a "New Thematics": the "queering" of "one disciplineeliterary criticism--with the habits of anothersocial science or moral interrogation" (The Practice Of Reading 66--67). This one tension is only representative of the many that exist in response to "what"s in the books," that persistent question. Charles Bressler"s Literary Criticism, Third Edition, invites readers not only into the debate but also into the larger literary conversation. Like the two previous editions, this one is written on the assumption that too often literary theory is a subject only for professional critics and academicians. While this new edition makes it even more possible for stUdents to work with complex theoretical configurations, it is not at all phobic about literary power. Bressler"s goal is to introduce students to the practice of literary reading in all its variety not to indoctrinate. Chapter 1 addresses two of the most central questions in the college literature classroom: How we read and why? To helP stUdents answer these questions, Bressler provides a working detrition of literature, including its epistemological and ontological components. His discussion also attempts to relate literary study to the relationship between public and private values. Chapter 2 traces the historical developments of literary criticism, from Plato to the present. ms chapt6r is designed to helP stUdents relate to and participate in the historical debate about such important subjects as representation, truth, beauty, nattire, form, meaning, gender, class, and audience,among others. Chapter 2 explores some of the important early influences on what is now modem and postmodern literary theory What is important about this chaPter is that it alerts students to the intellectual risks of developing a merely contemporary diet of ideas. " Chapters 3 through 11 of Literary Criticism, Third Edition, investigate the main critical "schools" that have developed to the present: respectively, New Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, StYuct-Uralism, Deconstruction,Psychoanalytic Criticism, Feminism, Marxism, Cultural Poetics (or New HistOricism), and Cu1tural StUdies, which has been expanded to include a more detailed discussion of Postcolonialism;Lithery CriticiSm, Third Edition, is designed to equip teachers and students to enter into a more meaningful conversation about literary texts. To this end, this revised edition includes a neW updated glossary of critical terms, new sttident essays, an updated bibliography, and a list of useful Web sites and links. The Intemet listings will provide students new and exciting avenues for literary research. All of the revisions to the new edition are intended to help stUdentS sharpen their critical thinking skills and develop a voice in critical discussions. To enable stUdents to become more informed readers of literature, the third edition also includes a Questions for Analysis section at the end of each chapter. This section reinforces the point that all good research writing and discussion begins with one good, well focused question. It is not the goal of this book to substitute for any important primary readings. Instead, this text intends to engage students in a series of mutual introductions to primary and secondary works in literary studies. It is hoped that students then will decide "what"s in the books," with the added awareness that it is only through rereading them over a lifetime that makes answers even possible. DanieI H. Strait Asbury College Wilmore, Kentucly