American Essays

Bringing up Baby. The Philadelphia Story. North by Northwest. An Affair to Remember. When Cary Grant passed away at age 82, fans from every generation mourned. Nearly 20 years later his star shines just as brightly from television and revival-house screens; his name remains synonymous with...

Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times: "Those hungry for political news will read Double Down for the scooplets and insidery glimpses it serves up about the two campaigns, and the clues it offers about the positioning already going on among Republicans and Democrats for 2016 ... The book...

“One of the year’s must-reads.” –ELLE “[A] provocative, heart-breaking, and frequently hilarious collection.” –GLAMOUR “Essential, vital, and urgent.” –HARPER’S BAZAAR In the vein of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist and Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, but...

“[Terry Castle is] the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today.” —Susan Sontag From one of America’s most brilliant critics and cultural commentators, Terry Castle, comes The Professor and Other Writings: a collection of startling, gorgeously-written...

This much-anticipated, game-changing special edition of Canada's premier annual fiction anthology celebrates the country's best emerging Black writers. For over thirty years, The Journey Prize Stories has consistently introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian writers. The 33rd...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward...

Now including a foreward by Bill Buford and photographs of Gellhorn with Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Gary Cooper, and others, this new edition rediscovers the voice of an extraordinary woman and brings back into print an irresistibly entertaining classic. "Martha Gellhorn...

A no-holds-barred look into the remarkable life and career of the prolific musician, songwriter, and producer behind Eurythmics and dozens of pop hits. Dave Stewart’s life has been a wild ride—one filled with music, constant reinvention, and the never-ending drive to create. Growing up in...

The New York Times bestselling memoir of survival and heroism at Pearl Harbor “An unforgettable story of unfathomable courage.” —Reader’s Digest In this, the first memoir by a USS Arizona sailor, Donald Stratton delivers an inspiring and unforgettable eyewitness account of the Pearl...

A bestselling historian takes readers on an intellectual and cultural adventure, offering a carefully curated guide to great, short nonfiction works by some of the world’s most influential writers—from Plato to Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway to bell hooks, and Marcus Aurelius to Joan Didion...

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 keeping...

From the collaborators behind the modern business classic All the Devils are Here comes a damning indictment of American capitalism—and the leaders that left us brutally unprepared for a global pandemic In 2020, the novel coronavirus pandemic made it painfully clear that the U.S. could not...

Loose Woman Seductive, earthy, and at times confessional, Sandra Cisneros's vibrant collection of poetry celebrates the females aspects of love--from the reflective to the overtly erotic--in a voice recognizable from her powerful works of fiction. These poems offer narratives as formally elegant...

REMARKABLE BIOGRAPHY OF AN ICON There's little debate that Robert De Niro is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, screen actors of his generation, perhaps of all time. His work, particularly in the first 20 years of his career, is unparalleled. Mean Streets, the Godfather Part II, Taxi...

“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...

From Pulitzer-prize winning Wall Street Journal columnist and New York Times bestselling author Peggy Noonan, a masterclass in how to see and love America. For a quarter century, Peggy Noonan has been thinking aloud about America in her much-loved Wall Street Journal column. In this new...

“This stunning collection from one of the great writers on Black culture covers the gamut: aging, love, poverty, trauma and plenty of lightness in between.”—People From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale comes a remarkable...

Rain in the Mountains brings together some of Ruskin Bond’s most beautiful works from his years spent in the foothills of the Himalayas in the town of Mussoorie. Through vivid images and lucid writing, Bond evokes the everyday sights and sounds, and captures the essence of mountain life. The...

The astonishing little-known history of Harlem racketeer Madame Stephanie St. Clair, one of the only female crime bosses and a Black, self-made businesswoman in early twentieth-century New York. In her heyday, Stephanie St. Clair went by many names, but one was best known by all: Madame Queen...

Each working day from January 29 to November 1, 1951, John Steinbeck warmed up to the work of writing East of Eden with a letter to the late Pascal Covici, his friend and editor at The Viking Press. It was his way, he said, of "getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game." Steinbeck's...