American Essays

""A must-read for this era.”—Jake Tapper, CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent An insightful, urgent, and perennially relevant handbook that lays out in common sense language how the United States Constitution works, and how its protections are eroding before our eyes—essential...

See the difference, read Maya Angelou in Large Print * About Large Print All Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typeface This wise book is the wonderful continuation of the bestselling Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. Even the Stars Look Lonesome is Maya...

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...

Jonathan Lethem's new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new listeners-- a smorgasbord of fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles. Lethem is a trailblazer fo a new kind of literary fiction, sampling high and low...

“If Tina Fey and David Sedaris had a daughter, she would be Maeve Higgins.” —Glamour A startlingly hilarious essay collection about one woman’s messy path to finding her footing in New York City, from breakout comedy star and podcaster Maeve Higgins Maeve Higgins was a bestselling...

Buscar la utopía es querer encontrar el paraíso, y viceversa. Alejo Carpentier lo intentó por medio de un riquísimo lenguaje, de la naturaleza exuberante. Los pasos perdidos es un descenso a las raíces, una travesía cargada de símbolos y de una ancestral tradición cultural. Esta novela...

En "Conversaciones con Billy Wilder" el legendario director, ya nonagenario, accedió por primera vez a hablar extensamente sobre su vida y obra. Entrevistado por Cameron Crowe, en sus páginas habla de su experiencia en el mismo corazón de Hollywood, así como sobre guiones, fotografía y...

""A gathering of gorgeous short pieces"" (Library Journal), Blue Pastures collects fifteen of Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning poet Mary Oliver's prose works about nature, writing, and herself. ""This transcendent collection is Oliver's joyful sharing of her love of her craft...

A Finalist for the NAACP Image Award Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay An NPR Best Book of the Year A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the Year From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and...

“Heart-pounding, illuminating, and ominously timeless” (Gina Frangello), this honest and poignant memoir reflects on a woman’s escape from a violent marriage and what it cost to protect her and her family’s safety. “Once upon a time, I disappeared.” So begins Karen Palmer’s...

With three straight #1 bestsellers and more than 4 million copies of his books in print, the most powerful traditional force in the American media now takes off his gloves in the ongoing struggle for America’s heart and soul. Bill O’Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture...

This classic collection of essays, edited by Booker T. Washington and with contributions from many of post-Civil War America's other prominent African-American thinkers, sought to redefine the role of Black persons in the new Jim Crow era and beat back white supremacy through racial uplift. Seven essays include Charles Chesnutt's "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", W. E. B. DuBois "The Talented Tenth", and Wilford Horace Smith's "The Negro and the Law" .

“If Carpentier is ever to get a new reading in English, it should be now. . . . West’s translations . . . reintroduce English-language readers to this giant of Latin American fiction.” —Natasha Wimmer, The New York Review of Books The best-known book by Cuba’s most important...

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...

Winner of the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction Winner of the Shilts-Grahn Triangle Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Winner of the 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 A revealing...

Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him. There is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his...

Exposes the new generation of whiteness thriving at the expense and borrowed ingenuity of black people—and explores how this intensifies racial inequality. American culture loves blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence...

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not only the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A...

These twenty superbly crafted linked stories navigate the difficult realm of friendship, charting its beginnings and ends, its intimacies and betrayals, its joys and humiliations. A mother learns something of the nature of love from watching her young daughter as she falls in and out of favour...

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...