宋朝是中国古代历史上一个非常特殊的时期，军事、外交上留给人们的印象似乎总是被动挨打、求和苟安，但当时社会的商品经济却极为发达，尤其在娱乐方面几乎达到了中国古代登峰造极的地步。《玩在宋朝》为我们呈现出的就是皇亲国戚、王公官宦、文人雅士乃至平民百姓如何流连于“吃喝玩乐”之间，带我们领略宋徽宗如何集全国之力成就“超级玩家”，还带我们跟随司马光一起去游园，随李清照一起去打马，随贾似道一起去斗蛐蛐，随高俅一起去蹴鞠……

关于追忆汴京繁盛，详录岁时宴赏、士女奢华的作品，从宋朝开始，至元明清三代，不绝如缕，《武林旧事》无疑是其中最成功也最有价值者之一。书中涉及大量文化史信息，极为古典文学与历史的研究者、爱好者所珍视。

Widely considered the preeminent Chinese woman poet, Li Qingzhao (1084-1150s) occupies a crucial place in China’s literary and cultural history. She stands out as the great exception to the rule that the first-rank poets in premodern China were male. But at what price to our understanding of her as a writer does this distinction come? The Burden of Female Talent challenges conventional modes of thinking about Li Qingzhao as a devoted but often lonely wife and, later, a forlorn widow. By examining manipulations of her image by the critical tradition in later imperial times and into the twentieth century, Ronald C. Egan brings to light the ways in which critics sought to accommodate her to cultural norms, molding her “talent” to make it compatible with ideals of womanly conduct and identity. Contested images of Li, including a heated controversy concerning her remarriage and its implications for her “devotion” to her first husband, reveal the difficulty literary culture has had in coping with this woman of extraordinary conduct and ability. The study ends with a reappraisal of Li’s poetry, freed from the autobiographical and reductive readings that were traditionally imposed on it and which remain standard even today.