American Essays

A New York Times bestseller The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy...

A fresh history of the West grounded in the lives of mixed-descent Native families who first bridged and then collided with racial boundaries. Often overlooked, there is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using...

A collection of self-contained chapters exploring human imperfections, life, and death through humor and raw introspection, perfect for readers who enjoy character-driven, literary fiction. The characters in Dominic Hoffman's tales of Late Rehearsals are familiar. Their choices are recognizable...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson...

Selected as one of the Best Books of 2016 by Bill Gates All too frequently, leadership is reduced to a simple dichotomy: the strong versus the weak. Yet, there are myriad ways to exercise effective political leadership-as well as different ways to fail. We blame our leaders for economic...

A 2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Nonfiction An Electric Literature “Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of 2022” Selection A love letter to the legendary Black and Latinx LGBTQ underground subculture, uncovering its abundant legacy and influence in popular culture. What is Ballroom? Not a...

Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

A frank and entertaining memoir, from the daughter of Edward Said, about growing up second-generation Arab American and struggling with that identity. The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted...

The National Book Award–winning novel by the writer whom Fran Lebowitz called “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald” Joe Chapin led a storybook life. A successful small-town lawyer with a beautiful wife, two over-achieving children, and aspirations to be president, he seemed to have it all. But as...

Tommy is twenty-nine, lives and loves in London, and has a morbid fear of the c word (commitment), the b word (boyfriend), and the f word (forgetting to call his drug dealer before the weekend). But when he begins to feel the urge to become a father, and the pressure from his boyfriend to make a...

This program is read by the author, Ken Layne, host of the Desert Oracle radio show. It includes an exclusive first listen to a story from Desert Oracle: Volume 2. The cult-y field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora...

From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks—writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of...

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize From the legendary literary master, winner of the National Book Award and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, a collection of thirteen mesmerizing stories that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Insightful, disturbing, imaginative, and...

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry Finalist for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection Postcolonial Love Poem, the brilliant second collection from Natalie Diaz, holds...

Mary Karr told the prize-winning tale of her hardscrabble Texas childhood with enough literary verve to spark a renaissance in memoir. The Liar's Club rode the top of The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, and publications ranging from The New Yorker to People picked it as one...

A no-holds-barred look into the remarkable life and career of the prolific musician, songwriter, and producer behind Eurythmics and dozens of pop hits. Dave Stewart’s life has been a wild ride—one filled with music, constant reinvention, and the never-ending drive to create. Growing up in...

Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, "propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon...

“Stielstra is a masterful essayist.” —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger From an important new writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice. In this poignant and inciting collection of literary...

A beautifully unconventional debut novel about a girl, a boy, and a satellite—and a bittersweet meditation on loneliness, alienation, and what it means to be human. Longlisted for Canada Reads, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction and for Speculative Fiction...

"Part memoir, part pep talk, the timely and inspirational guide for listeners and writers alike exudes Anders's colloquial and casual presence." - AudioFile Magazine This program is read by the author. From Charlie Jane Anders, the award-winning author of novels such as All the Birds in the Sky...