Classic Essays

Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages and towns, they lead lives that are touched by natural beauty as...

In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s. His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and...

A powerful, timely, dazzling new collection of poems from Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award–winning author of Lighthead—to be published simultaneously with his latest work of literary criticism, Watch Your Language The three sections of Terrance Hayes’ seventh collection explore how...

From Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock, a sermon in the public square on the issues that plague us most Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America...

An intimate memoir portraying a life spent trying to describe the indescribable—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Hours and Day Go ahead. Try using language to slit the skin of mortality to see what’s on the other side. At the age of three, Michael Cunningham began obsessively...

A superb collection of fifteen stories by an American master, E. L. Doctorow—the author of Ragtime, The March, The Book of Daniel, and Billy Bathgate He has been called “a national treasure” by George Saunders. Doctorow’s great topic, said Don DeLillo, is “the reach of American...

Although never considered to be a popular speaker nor prolific writer, A. W. Tozer's audiences did appreciate what he had to say, and he was probably the most widely read Christian writer of his time. Keys to the Deeper Life contains six of his best-known essays and editorials. In them he...

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...

A lyrical exploration of the world’s wildest, most forbiddingly remote places—and the humans who have always been there, by an award-winning and critically acclaimed writer From the blacksand beaches of Iceland, to river crossings deep in the Amazon jungle, to the barren beauty of Antarctica...

A cult classic, Fixer Chao—which was named a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year—by New Yorker contributor Han Ong, delivers a sharp and insightful narrative about racial and social hierarchy, personal identity, and alienation William Paulinha, a resourceful, gay Filipino sex worker, is...

With Virginia Woolf as a guide, the stories of eight radical 20th century women--wanderers, rebels, explorers, mentors--who made a life for themselves in spite of everything. Everything that changed in the 20th century changed more dramatically for women. Her Own Voice tells the stories of eight...

A plucky yet innocent wallflower writing a dictionary of bawdy slang arranges her own marriage to the ultimate instructor: the town rake. As sexy as it is witty and as charming as it is irreverent, The Very Definition of Love is Emily Henry for the regency era. 1816– Harriet Barrington may be...

“Tenderhearted and filled with sweeping magical adventures, These Kindred Hearts vividly captures the beauty of love, promising thrills, hope, and happily ever afters. From first kisses to second chances, every story in this anthology is a must read for romance readers of all ages. Truly...

In this witty, absurd, and surprisingly moving memoir-in-essays, comedian Alison Leiby unpacks the multitudes women are told to be—and the joy of refusing to pick just one. Have you ever frozen when someone asks, "So, tell me about yourself?" If so, take a page from I'm a Lot. Alison Leiby...

For readers seeking solutions to finally end the gun violence that kills tens of thousands of people each year in the United States— from a Harvard-trained trauma surgeon treating victims in Chicago If hope for ending gun violence can take hold in Chicago’s South Side, then it can take hold...

Dr. Dino Martins, an awarding-winning entomologist of Kenya's Turkana Basin, where life was born, unspools the hidden, squirming world of parasites—some of the most misunderstood, and important, creatures with whom we share the Earth (and our bodies!). “May this tusk root out the lice of the...

A full-frontal confrontation of the ways we perform desire and shame—from the downright bizarre to the frighteningly relatable—by the award-winning author of A Sharp Endless Need An employee at a hunting ground where people pay to act out hate crimes prepares to meet their girlfriend’s...

An uncompromising and sensually charged collection from one of the great practitioners of the short story The debut story collection from Los Angeles writer Kate Braverman assembles a vivid patchwork of interconnected narratives set in Southern California. Through brief, often haunting snapshots...

From the incendiary voice behind Your Driver is Waiting, a riotous novel following a family of Tamil refugees who fled civil war in Sri Lanka to pursue a better life, just for it to be up-ended by the schemes of a self-proclaimed day-trading savant, jeopardizing everything they’ve worked so...

Lakshmi is the goddess of all that is good wealth (dhana), beauty (saundarya) and happiness (sukha). As Vishnu s consort and in her incarnations as Sita and Rukmini, she represents the ideal of femininity in Hinduism. She is also Shri, the goddess of fertility and grain, and Mahalakshmi, the...