Classic Essays

One of the most remarkable figures of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne was a brilliant French philosopher and statesman whose work directly influenced René Descartes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Isaac Asimov and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a humanist and a sceptic, with an insatiable and wide-ranging curiosity. In 1571, on his 38th birthday, he withdrew from public life and retired to the library in his castle tower, where he assembled a body of work that is still highly relevant today.

A human physiology expert lays out the basic facts to explain why the idea of biological sex as a binary is simply wrong. Biological sex is as nuanced as gender. Many of us are biologically more typically masculine in some ways and more typically feminine in others. The constellation of traits...

From the author Bright Lights, Big City, a brilliantly crafted story that unveils the fault lines within a marriage and the profound consequences of ambition. "A wicked pleasure to read"—Boston Globe As he maps the fault lines spreading through the once-impenetrable marriage of Russell and...

The final installment in Lyndsay Faye’s Timothy Wilde series, which Lee Child called “solid-gold” and Gillian Flynn declared “spectacular.” No one in 1840s New York likes fires, copper star Timothy Wilde least of all. After a blaze killed his parents and another left him with a...

This Yuletide collection of stories, poems, and essays has been rescued from obscurity by the editor, who has also edited and annotated them to make these wonderful classics more easily accessible to modern listeners. While some of these authors may be unknown to you, their works have been included in this collection because of their capacity to instantly intrigue and delight. Give them a try, and don't be surprised if a few of them make their way onto your list of all-time personal Christmas favorites!

‘Ram’s story as a metaphor for human strengths and weaknesses and as a window to inner divinity’—Tehelka / Ram is maryada purushottam, the supreme upholder of social values, scion of the Raghu clan, jewel of the solar dynasty, seventh avatar of Vishnu. Reviled by feminists, appropriated...

“This is not a book to promote tranquility, and readers in quest of peace of mind should look elsewhere,” writes Paul Fussell in the foreword to this original, sharp, tart, and thoroughly engaging work. The celebrated author focuses his lethal wit on habitual euphemizers, artistically pretentious third-rate novelists, sexual puritans, and the “Disneyfiers of life”. He moves from the inflammatory title piece on the morality of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima to a disquisition on the “naturist movement”, and more.

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...

A brilliant biography of one of India’s greatest poets Mirza Mohammad Asadullah Khan Ghalib began writing poetry in Persian at the age of nine and the pre-eminent poet of the time, Mir, predicted a great future for the precocious genius when he was shown his verse. But success and material...

Big Cats opens with "Charlotte," in which a young girl with a broken pelvis spies on her voluptuous neighbor during a long, hot summer night, setting the tone of irrepressible curiosity and yearning that is evident throughout the collection. In "Get Away from Me, David," a bank manager tries to...

A wild, inventive ride of a short story collection from a distinctive new American storyteller. The stories in Thomas Pierce’s Hall of Small Mammals take place at the confluence of the commonplace and the cosmic, the intimate and the infinite. A fossil-hunter, a comedian, a hot- air balloon...

From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature. In this...

This inaugural-and all new-Tarcher Cornerstone Edition presents a stunningly relevant and reliable translation of the thoughts and aphorisms of the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, properly placing the philosopher-king's writings within the vein of the world's great religious...

Nous ne nous sommes jamais écoutés parce que nous continuons à les laisser nous guider à tort. Comment cela a-t-il pu arriver? Le fait est que nous avons des millions d'intellects. Mais les civilisations s'efforcent toujours de trouver de nouvelles idées. Nous devrions essayer de trouver de bonnes choses les uns dans les autres. Notre trésor est ce que nous pouvons produire pour nous entraider. Notre trésor est aussi la connaissance que nous avons, que nous pensons avoir et que les autres ne peuvent pas voir à moins que nous mettions notre sagesse à l'épreuve.

This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of The Republic. Translated by Raymond Larson. The Republic is an explosion of thought; a ten-book brainstorm of one of the greatest minds of all-time.

From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people. Disquiet transports the listener to the contemporary Middle East through the stories of Meleknaz, a Yazidi Syrian refugee...

A collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from Alice McDermott, winner of the National Book Award and unmatched "virtuoso of language and image" (Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe) What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the...

Winner of four major prizes for the best critical/biographical book related to crime fiction: the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and H.R.F. Keating Awards; and shortlisted for both the Agatha and Gold Dagger Awards. ‘Martin Edwards is the closest thing there has been to a philosopher of crime...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. In a profoundly strange country called Inner Horner, large enough for only one resident at a...

Is karma just another word for fate? Is karma subject to time? Do animals have karma? These are just some of the questions posed in this collection of seven short essays by Theosophist writer William Q. Judge, while exploring the topic of karma. The essays are: "Karma", "Aphorisms on Karma", "Karma in the Desatir", "Thoughts on Karma", "Men Karmic Agents", "Is Karma Only Punishment?" and "Is Poverty Bad Karma?"