American Essays

"In almost any culture, at any time, you can find food writing,” writes guest editor Mark Bittman in his introduction. “Food means growing and hardship, and health and medicine, and work and holiday. In its abundance it is a gift and a joy, and in its absence a curse and a tragedy. If a culture has writing, that culture has food writing.” The stories in this year’s Best American Food Writing are brilliant, eye-opening windows into the heart of our country’s culture.

A tender, searching collection of poems that breaks open notions of faith to ask how a daughter, alienated from kin, can find love and a home in the world, from the award-winning author of If They Come for Us and When We Were Sisters at the edge of an edge is an edge. at that edge is a cliff...

Daughters of Latin America collects the intergenerational voices of Latine women across time and space, capturing the power, strength, and creativity of these visionary writers, leaders, scholars, and activists—including 24 Indigenous voices. Several authors featured are translated into English for the first time. Grammy, National Book Award, Cervantes, and Pulitzer Prize winners as well as a Nobel Laureate and the next generation of literary voices are among the stars of this essential collection, women whose work inspires and transforms us.

Blistering and deeply personal, I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son records Russell's quest to understand, through his journalistic subjects, his own appetites and urges, his persistent alienation, and, above all, his knotty, volatile, vital relationship with his father.

Unlike every other nation in the history of the world, America was not founded simply upon the bases of communal physical considerations such as geography, tribe, caste, race, or religion. Rather, it was founded upon the shared, evolving, and occasionally conflicting ideals of liberty and equality of opportunity and with the hope that the fulfillment of these ideals would enable its citizens to realize significant individual and collective achievements.

I det berømte titelessay Elefanten og i det efterfølgende essay En henrettelse leverer Orwell en svidende kritik af det britiske koloniale styre. Baseret på egne oplevelser som officer i det koloniale politi i Burma kaster han et undersøgende blik på magt, magtudøvelse og underkastelse. Herefter følger klassikeren Sådan dør de fattige samt en række af de mesterlige indlæg, Orwell skrev til sin ugentlige klumme i Tribune i årene 1943-47 under overskriften As I please.

Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books - selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude - have been described as ‘virtuoso performances’ and ‘small masterpieces'. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche.

A profound portrait of contemporary Pakistan from the award-winning author of The Return of Faraz Ali In seven searing, atmospheric stories, Aamina Ahmad finds a world of pathos in the narrowest circumstances, from the fugitive intimacies of villages where nothing escapes notice to the crevices...

From award-winning poet and novelist Phillip B. Williams, an astonishing new collection that revels in the possibility of creating one's own light Captivating for both its grandeur and intimacy, Lift Every Voice explores the capacity for the past to be both a source of dread and empowerment, an...

Romantic love has been one of the most essential elements of storytelling for centuries. But for Black people in the United States and across the diaspora, it hasn't often been easy to find Black romance joyfully showcased in entertainment media. In this collection, revered authors and sparkling newcomers, librarians and academicians, and avid fans and reviewers consider the mirrors and windows into Black love as it is depicted in the novels, television shows, and films that have shaped their own stories.

A seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African American literature. Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works in the field of sociology.

Stefan Fatsis infiltrates a strikingly different subculture: pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up - barely - to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco.

University of Miami football is more than national championships, 30-game winning streaks, and being a pipeline to the NFL. It’s the Gator Flop, defeating Tulane on a fifth down, and playing three games in eight days. It’s converting third and 44 against Notre Dame, Michael Irvin talking smack with Florida State’s Deion Sanders, and Vinny Testaverde being sacked by hamburgers.

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

The Pulitzer Prize winner’s final written work: poems of penetrating acceptance and humor, whose soul-sweeping gaze encompasses his own autobiography and the broken world he nonetheless gives thanks for “His hands strip poetry to its nub.” —Los Angeles Times “Reading [Wright] is like...

A myth-busting glimpse into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, revealing what we get wrong about the “Roberts era,” what the justices' clerks gossip about, and how to fix a court in crisis—from the popular ABC news pundit and top legal podcaster Most people get the Supreme Court all...

For almost a century after the U.S. Constitution went into effect, few Americans seem to have questioned the legitimacy of the Revolution. Since the Progressive generation of historians began the work of serious criticism and revision, however, students of American life have largely learned to live with a more complicated understanding of the revolutionary legacy. Smith's treatment of the era charts space for libertarians to both criticize and revere the American heritage.

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry state that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative - an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders.

In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator.

Meena Menon was The Hindu's correspondent in Islamabad till she was expelled by the Pakistani authorities in May 2014. In spite of her truncated stay and the restrictions placed on her movements, Menon managed to write on a range of subjects covering swathes of life in Islamabad.