Classic Essays

The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the...

This crystal ball look into the future of American politics shows how the brewing generational shift to the Left is only the beginning of transformations to come. A demographic apocalypse is coming for the Republican Party. Its most reliable voters are dying, and Republican elites have been...

"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...

"Business law in medieval and early modern India developed within thevoluminous and multifaceted texts called the Dharmashastras. These texts laiddown rules for merchants, traders, guilds, farmers and individuals in terms ofthe complex religious, legal and moral ideal of dharma.This exciting...

Duryodhana was a man of strong character and integrity.Duhsshasana was respectful, generous and kind towards women.Shakuni was a simple man who loved his subjects unconditionally.Dhana Nanda, Aurangzeb and Hitler possessed admirable leadership traits.'Duryodhanization' refers to the birth and...

The internationally acclaimed author harnesses his brilliant imagination and masterful storytelling ability to create a catalog of new words inspired by stories of real people in this wondrous book reminiscent of Italo Calvino's mesmerizing Invisible Cities. How many times have words not been...

In this emotional and laugh-out-loud coming-of-age memoir, the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father —and whether it's possible to reconnect before it’s too late. For Anna Konkle’s childhood, her father was her hero—a...

A dazzling novel from one of our finest writers—an epic yet intimate family saga about three generations of all-American radicals At the center of Jonathan Lethem’s superb new novel stand two extraordinary women: Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an...

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...

This compelling biography examines the extraordinary life and strange contrasts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the struggling provincial doctor who became the most popular storyteller of his age when he created Sherlock Holmes. From his youthful exploits aboard a whaling ship, to his often stormy...

Combining the lyrical observation of F. Scott Fitzgerald with the laser-bright social satire of Evelyn Waugh, Jay McInerney gives us a novel that is stunningly accomplished and profoundly affecting. As he maps the fault lines spreading through the once-impenetrable marriage of Russell and...

In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers—Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and...

A new collection of critical and personal essays on the writing life, from National Book Award—winning and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates. “Why do we write?” With this question, Joyce Carol Oates, in this new collection of seminal essays and criticism, begins an...

"A great story--how modernism brought down the regime of censorship--told as a great story. Kevin Birmingham's imaginative scholarship brings Joyce and his world to life. There is a fresh detail on nearly every page."--Louis Menand, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club For...

The first story collection from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Memory Keeper's Daughter With The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards touched hearts across the nation. In this, her first collection of stories-now with three new stories added-she explores the lives of those...

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED―ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!―TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of...

Die schönsten Kurzgeschichten aus aller Welt. Kurz, knackig, auf den Punkt...

Sex and politics dominate national headlines, but what do these dangerous dalliances look like from inside? Bridget Siegel--veteran of John Edwards’s and Barack Obama’s presidential bids--tells a provocative, page-turning tale of a talented young woman who falls in love and in bed with the...

The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies. Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off...

I meet Jesus on the day I get home from the war. I’m on the beach, but I don’t know how I got here. My mind is as dark as the night. . . . I spend the whole night on the beach. But when the sun’s faint light begins to bend around the Earth, I see him. . . . There, coming toward me, out of...