American Essays

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Times (London) From National Book Award–winning author Evan Osnos comes a “sharp…charming…regrettably timely” (The Washington Post) collection of essays exploring American oligarchy, billionaire...

With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.

Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, Thomas McGuane, and more, share stories of fly fishing and life on the river. This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about one of the world’s most solitary and satisfying sports: fly fishing. For the first time, the stories of thirty-one acclaimed writers including Kim Barnes, Walter Bennett, Russell Chatham, Guy de la Valdne, Robert DeMott, Chris Dombrowski, Ron Ellis, Jim Fergus, Kate Fox, Charles Gaines, Bruce Guernsey, Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Michael Keaton, Greg Keeler, Sydney Lea, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, Craig Mathews, Thomas McGuane, Joseph Monninger, Howard Frank Mosher, Jake Mosher, Craig Nova, Margot Page, Datus Proper, Le Anne Schreiber, Paul Schullery, W. D. Wetherell, and Robert Wrigley come together in one collection. Fly fishers and non-fly fishers alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of the appreciation of nature, the necessity of conservation, and the joy and knowledge that come from time spent on fresh and salt water. This is a delightful, handsome volume that captures the allure and spirit of fly fishing and those that love it.

“When truth teller and careful writer bell hooks offers a book, I like to be standing at the bookshop when it opens.” –Maya Angelou Renowned visionary bell hooks explored the meaning of love in American culture with the critically acclaimed bestseller All About Love: New Visions. She...

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

I forget things too. It makes me sad. Or it makes me the saddest. The sadness is not really about George W. or our American optimism; the sadness lives in the recognition that a life can not matter. The award-winning poet Claudia Rankine, well known for her experimental multigenre writing, fuses the lyric and the essay in this politically and morally fierce examination of solitude in the rapacious and media-driven assault on selfhood that is contemporary America.

Traveling to 20 towns in 20 weeks, author Theron Hopkins examines the magic of high school football in America. He finds that, in a world of spectacle and drama, the Friday night lights are not the most important part of what makes high school football so loved by those who play it, coach it, and watch it.

“Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there.” — Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? A New York...

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the...

A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Somebody Somewhere actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to Hollywood’s lower...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. “Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These...

This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about every outdoorsman’s favorite and most loyal hunting partner: his dog. For the first time, the stories of acclaimed writers such as Richard Ford, Tom Brokaw, Howell Raines, Rick Bass, Sydney Lea, Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, Phil Caputo, and Chris Camuto come together in one collection. Hunters and non-hunters alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of owning dogs.

This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Mark Twains's greatest works: 12 novels; over 120 of his beloved short stories; Chapters From My Autobiography; 5 pieces of short non-fiction; and 6 pieces of his groundbreaking, wide-ranging travel writing.

From junior high football games to the Sugar Bowl with a national championship up for grabs, Mike Liner has seen it all in football. President and CEO of a bank by day, Liner has been a Texas football official on Fridays and Saturdays for the past 35 years. It’s Not All Black and White offers a view of college football seen through a different set of eyes, the eyes of an official. Liner takes listeners through the story of his ascension up the officiating hierarchy and describes the bumps in the road he encountered along the way.

America’s most trusted and best-known film critic Roger Ebert presents two hundred brilliant essays on some of the best movies ever made in this two-book collection containing THE GREAT MOVIES and THE GREAT MOVIES II. Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, wrote biweekly essays for a...

This newly updated edition captures the best stories ever told about "America's Team." Tales from the Dallas Cowboys Sideline is a fascinating, fun look at the inner workings of one of the most beloved teams of all time. From what really happened during Tony Dorsett’s TD run in Super Bowl XII to Coach Tom Landry’s suggestions on pre-game meals, this book is a hilarious and unique collection of stories. Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters never lost sight of how much fun it was to play in the NFL—especially for the Dallas Cowboys—and they share that fun with you in Tales from the Dallas Cowboys Sideline.

Ohio coaching legend Paul Brown said he wanted to create "the New York Yankees of pro football" when he assembled the Cleveland Browns from scratch in 1946. Despite his ambition, not even the future Hall of Fame coach could have foreseen ten league championship appearances and seven titles in the team's first ten years.

Tom Kelly, the legendary signature voice of USC sports for nearly five decades, combines with co-author Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News of Los Angeles to take Trojan fans on a journey of memories and previously untold anecdotes from and about many of the great coaches, players, teams, and games in USC football history, as well as other sports. His story in Southern California starts with the recommendation of Jack Buck that he be hired as Chick Hearn’s color man on USC football and basketball games in 1961.

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee and series editor Heidi Pitlor. “Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short...