Classic Essays

A vital path home. Employing African epistemologies and an embodied African beingness, this book embraces the revelation and miracle of Blackness. Creating a world worthy of our children requires recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life. This book is not written for...

Una denuncia innovadora y urgente desde la primera línea del "trabajo sucio", el trabajo que la sociedad considera esencial pero moralmente comprometido. Pilotos de drones que llevan a cabo asesinatos selectivos. Inmigrantes indocumentados que trabajan en los mataderos industriales. Guardias...

The first and only comprehensive collection of writings by Elizabeth Garver Jordan, the groundbreaking journalist, suffragist, and editor whose fearless reporting on women preceded the #MeToo movement and popularized the true-crime genre A Penguin Classic The Case of Lizzie Borden and Other...

On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India was adopted formally and came into effect. Its preamble set out in brief the enlightened values it enshrined and hoped to engender. In a radical shift from mainstream constitutional history, this book establishes Dr B.R. Ambedkar's irrefutable...

Hear some of the greatest American essays ever written! This unabridged collection covers a multitude of subjects, including philosophy, politics, turkeys, and dogs.

"Nací y fui un hombre de color, no lo olvidéis, pero viví como una mujer de color durante diecisiete años." Henry Cebolla Shackleton es un pícaro niño esclavo en cuyo camino se cruza el legendario abolicionista John Brown, «el más americano de todos nosotros», en palabras de Henry David...

How people around the world grapple with the great questions posed by Socrates. What is virtue? What is moderation? What is justice? What is courage? What is good? What is piety? Socrates thought that understanding the perspectives of others on these six great questions would help him become a...

Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world. A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure what the...

The first major book for writers to more effectively engage with complex socio-political issues—a critical first step in creating social change Writers are witnesses and scribes to society’s conscience but writing about social issues in the twenty-first century requires a new, sharper...

An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and...

"A rich and lovely book. It brings forward Buddy Bradley with forthright care, wondering with thinkers and artists from Black history how we might best remember his work and understand his achievements."—Thomas F. DeFrantz, author of Dancing Many Drums The groundbreaking story of Buddy...

From a nationally recognized abuse-prevention expert, an accessible guide that debunks the most pervasive myths about personal safety and offers evidence-based advice that actually improves safety We receive a lot of advice about how to stay safe in society. Sometimes the advice is about the...

“A Room of One’s Own” is one of Virginia Woolf’s most influential works and a cornerstone of the feminist movement. In this brilliant essay, Woolf explores the limitations faced by women in the early 20th century, using captivating prose and the poetic style characteristic of a novelist. She compellingly argues that the lack of financial independence and a private space are key barriers preventing women from fully developing their literary talents

A sweeping, propulsive novel about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves, in which a man struggles to find his place in an Iran on the brink of combusting Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighborhood of Tehran, a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of...

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in Agra in the closing years of the eighteenth century. A precocious child, he began composing verses at an early age and gained recognition while he was still very young. He wrote in both Urdu and Persian and was also a great prose stylist. He was a careful...

Longlisted for the National Book Award Winner of the Reading the West Book Award in Fiction Winner of the Writers' League of Texas Book Award in Fiction An extraordinary short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”*...

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...

For readers of The Sum of Us and South to America, an essential new look at the roots of American inequality—and the seeds of its transformation Once the powerhouse of a fledgling country’s economy, the Mississippi Delta has been consigned to a narrative of destitution. It is often faulted...

Allahabad, early twentieth century. The British rule across India, but Avadhi culture is thriving. In this city where singers, musicians and poets assemble, a star emerges. Janki Bai Ilahabadi enthrals listeners wherever she performs, and counts as her fans maharajas and maharanis, poets and...

The journey will be long and difficult, one thousand miles. Try not to be too obvious. Stick to the backroads. You’ ll know you’ ve arrived when you get there. Stephen Bolin leaves a bizarre note by his deathbed, asking his sisters to take his body back to his birthplace in Far North...