Classic Essays

This definitive and magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation is one of the rare English translations in full of the epic. Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers. Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war...

At this defining moment in our history, Americans are hungry for change. After years of failed policies and a failed politics from Washington, this is our chance to reclaim the American dream. Barack Obama has proven to be a new kind of leader—one who can bring people together, be honest about...

Here, in this unusual collection, are some of the greatest essays in Western literature. Witty, informative and imaginative, the topics vary from starvation in Ireland, fine China, the extension of railways in the Lake District, and the tombs in Westminster Abbey. A little like after-dinner monologues, they are passing thoughts expressed as journalism. Neville Jason reads with urbane clarity.

A “brilliant and provocative” (The New Yorker) celebration of Melville’s masterpiece—from the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye One of the greatest American novels finds its perfect contemporary champion in Why Read Moby-Dick?...

The prescient feminist fable and international classic described as “The Handmaid’s Tale for our age” (The Economist), from the Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional When the women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the...

Nature is a book-length essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. In the essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, a belief system that espouses a non-traditional appreciation of nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

Dionne Brand’s hypnotic, urgent long poem is about the bones of fading cultures and ideas, about the living museums of spectacle where these bones are found. At the centre of Ossuaries is the narrative of Yasmine, a woman living an underground life, fleeing from past actions and regrets, in a...

A master class in the art of writing by one of its most distinguished and innovative practitioners Delve into the labyrinth of Jorge Luis Borges’s thoughts on the theory and practice of literature, and learn from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century not only what a...

This definitive and magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation is one of the rare English translations in full of the epic. Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers. Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war...

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

Following on the Giller Prize-nominated and Governor General's Literary Award-winning success of Ru, Kim Thúy's latest novel is a triumph of poetic beauty and a moving meditation on how love and food are inextricably entwined. Mãn has three mothers: the one who gives birth...

This is complete collection of American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Christian humanism. Stephen King has called Lovecraft "the twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

"This intellectual biography of Tagore, perhaps the first of its kind, portrays him as a man who was deeply skeptical, self-critical, tormented by conflicts in his inner life , aware of the historical significance of his times and continually interacted with adversaries and friends across the...

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was...

The compelling novel that began Shirley Jackson's legendary career Pepper Street is a really nice, safe California neighborhood. The houses are tidy and the lawns are neatly mowed. Of course, the country club is close by, and lots of pleasant folks live there. The only problem is they knocked...

Recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, poet Seamus Heaney brings beautiful focus to life in Ireland. Through his poetry, he encapsulates the country’s historical and political details while connecting it to the personal lives of the citizens...

From the best-selling and always-prescient author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal comes a bold indictment of America’s chronic obsession with creativity and innovation, showing how these beloved ideas came to dominate our political and economic conversation, all while...

From the bestselling, iconic author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil comes an irreverent and essential style guide—from boxers to button downs, turtlenecks to tuxedos For more than a decade, beloved author John Berendt wrote a series of smart, sophisticated columns for Esquire on...

Walden or, "Life in the Woods", is, primarily, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. Henry David Thoreau kept a journal during his stay in a cabin beside Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, for two years, two months, and two days, from July 1845 to Sept 1847. The book is based on that journal.