American Essays

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays by acclaimed writer and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott, “the modern day reincarnation of…Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin—all rolled into one” (The Washington Post), about what happened after she...

This extraordinary collection of correspondence by Paul Bowles spans eight decades and provides an evolving portrait of an artist renowned for his privacy. From his earliest extant letter, written at the age of four, to his precocious effusions to Aaron Copeland and to Gertrude Stein; from his...

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown...

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...

A delightfully subversive essay collection from Laci Mosley, host of the award-winning “Scam Goddess” podcast, about the frauds, cons, and schemes that make up our world—and how the scammer mindset has affected her own upbringing, career, friendships, love life, and more. ​ From an early...

In its fight for global dominance, Communist China has thrown out the old rules of war. China expert General Robert Spalding walks us through their new playbook. Many Americans are finally waking up to the alarming reality of China's stealth war on the United States and puzzling over how to...

In this hilariously funny essay collection, former ESPN columnist Rick Reilly com­piles the best of his sports columns - essays that include his expert opinion on athlete tattoos, NFL cheerleaders, and even running with the bulls in Pamplona.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers...

How can political campaigns fight back against disinformation? A decade after The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, which Politico called "Moneyball for politics," journalist Sasha Issenberg returns to the cutting edge of political innovation to reveal how campaigns are...

Politicians have failed us. But democracy doesn’t have to. Bought by special interests, detached from real life, obsessed with reelection. Politicians make big promises, deliver little to nothing, and keep the game rigged in their favor. But what can we do? In Politics Without Politicians...

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale.

Named a Best Memoir of 2025 (So Far) by BookPage and Real Simple * “A beautiful story about an extraordinary mother’s gift of love and hope.” —Jeannette Walls, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle * “Candid...Heartbreaking...Illuminating.” —Oprah Daily From “a...

If your funny older sister were the former deputy chief of staff to President Barack Obama, her behind-the-scenes political memoir would look something like this . . . Alyssa Mastromonaco worked for Barack Obama for almost a decade, and long before his run for president. From the then-senator's...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER What would actually make America great: more people. If the most challenging crisis in living memory has shown us anything, it’s that America has lost the will and the means to lead. We can’t compete with the huge population clusters of the global marketplace by...

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 TIME Must-Read of 2025 A debut essay collection by the inimitable cultural critic Maris Kreizman—an introspective, searing account of the life experiences that have pushed this former “good Democrat” even further to the political left At the heart of this funny, acerbic, and bravely...

Acclaimed across the world, prescribed in over 100 universities and colleges, and included in part in The Century's Greatest Reportage (Ordfront, 2000), alongside the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Studs Terkel and John Reed, Everybody Loves a Good Drought is the established classic on rural...

FINALIST FOR THE 2024 HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2024 CBC Books’ Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2024 “Here is my disconnect: the private and public self. My mind and body. The real person and curated spectacle. . . . Are there...

A piercing, unforgettable memoir-in-essays about the contradictions and racism present in intimate relationships that are so little discussed, and yet form the backbone of white supremacy. Fugitive Archives will redefine the conversation about race in America today, from our closest, most...

Read by the author. Do you feel like you live life looking in from the outside? From the way you speak, to the color of your skin, to the way you vote, or the way you pray, you don't fit the mold. And yet you find yourself still trying to prove yourself to others. In Set Me Free, New York Times...