American Essays

Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets—and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He's continually...

Birth control. Body hair removal cream. Boobs. It’s all weird, but also pretty normal. Navigating racial identity, gender roles, workplace dynamics, and beauty standards, Mia Mercado's hilarious essay collection explores the contradictions of being a millennial woman, which usually means being...

""A truly excellent novel. . . . The morbidly fascinating little twists of human existence are all here: love, sex, life and death, beauty and horror—the works."" — Chicago Sun-Times In The Book of Jamaica, Russell Banks explores the complexities of political life in the Caribbean and its...

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives. And so the National Story...

A superb collection of fifteen stories by an American master, E. L. Doctorow—the author of Ragtime, The March, The Book of Daniel, and Billy Bathgate He has been called “a national treasure” by George Saunders. Doctorow’s great topic, said Don DeLillo, is “the reach of American...

Comedy writer and middle daughter of Al Gore, Kristin Gore has written a funny and moving debut novel about life on Capitol Hill as seen through the eyes of Samantha Joyce, a twenty-six year old health care analyst to Ohio Junior Senator Robert Gary. Hard working, idealistic, extremely competent...

With his Heritage, Legacy, and Inheritance trilogies, New York Times bestselling author Ian Douglas established himself as one of the true masters of military sf—sharing center stage with such authors as Rick Shelley, John Ringo, David Sherman, and Dan Cragg in a wildly popular sub-genre of...

If you believe children should be seduced into warped sexual behavior by the Gay Elite, if you think confessed murderers should be set free by defense attorneys who know how to wield the race card, if you feel promiscuous gay men should be empowered to spread AIDS and other sexually transmitted...

A luminous memoir-in-essays exploring place, identity, and what it means to grow up queer and Asian in the American South.

A biography of iconic radical historian Howard Zinn, examining his life and work as a progressive icon and thought leader through the story of the times that shaped him as well as the United States of America. From The Nation magazine columnist and New York Times bestselling author Dave Zirin...

Since 1998, the Alfred A. Knopf Publishing Group has celebrated National Poetry Month by emailing a poem-a-day throughout the month of April to over 25,000 devoted poetry fans. In April 2006, Knopf introduced the Poem-a-Day podcast, which featured poets including Kevin Young and James Merrill...

Four experts on the American presidency examine the first three times impeachment has been invoked—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton—and explain what it means today. Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY DUGGINS PRIZE "Hypnotic...a haunting romance about desire, obsession, and ambition that is sure to get your heart rate up." —Time Magazine "R.O...

A New York Times Notable Book A revised collection with thirteen essays, including six new to this edition and seven from the original edition, by the “star in the American literary firmament, with a voice that is courageous, honest, loving, and singularly beautiful” (NPR). Brilliant and...

W. E. B. Du Bois was the foremost Black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of 14 beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical "double-consciousness" of African American life.

A plucky yet innocent wallflower writing a dictionary of bawdy slang arranges her own marriage to the ultimate instructor: the town rake. As sexy as it is witty and as charming as it is irreverent, The Very Definition of Love is Emily Henry for the regency era. 1816– Harriet Barrington may be...

“Tenderhearted and filled with sweeping magical adventures, These Kindred Hearts vividly captures the beauty of love, promising thrills, hope, and happily ever afters. From first kisses to second chances, every story in this anthology is a must read for romance readers of all ages. Truly...

Most Anticipated Book of 2026: People "Take What You Can is so brilliantly, unbelievably good I have a burning in my heart.... Love is utterly bewildering, and nobody writes about it better than Naima Coster."—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich From the New York...

From The New York Times bestselling author of a Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing comes an update of John Steinbeck’s trip in Travels with Charley, a cross-country journey exploring modern America with Lauren Hough’s signature observational wit, searing social commentary, and perspective as...

A collection of the year’s top food and travel writing, selected by the trailblazing New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-nominated host of Taste the Nation and Top Chef Padma Lakshmi. “Food and travel are natural companions,” writes guest editor Padma Lakshmi. From this pairing...