Classic Essays

A freelance writer learns what it's like to be a single, heterosexual guy in an unsteady world when he's invited to travel cross-country for six months on the "Playboy Bus" in search of the Playmate of the Millennium...

From Ragtime and Billy Bathgate to World’s Fair, The March, and Homer & Langley, the fiction of E. L. Doctorow comprises a towering achievement in modern American letters. Now Doctorow returns with an enthralling collection of brilliant, startling short fiction about people who, as the author...

Heralding the arrival of a stunning new voice in American fiction, Robin Black’s If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This takes readers into the minds and hearts of people navigating the unsettling transitions that life presents to us all. Written with maturity and insight, and in beautiful...

It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly—to everything associated with the words “human,”...

Explains the attraction of Muslims to their faith, and discusses the challenges contemporary Islam confronts, and how we might imagine an Islamic theology and identity ready to face tomorrow Islam is often associated with and limited to the worst of the world—extremism, obscurantism, misogyny...

For listeners of Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives and Muriel Spark’s Loitering with Intent, this “sublime” and “delightfully unhinged” metaphysical mystery disguised as a picaresque romp follows one poet’s spectacular fall from grace to ask a vital question: Is everyone a...

The epic story of the Congo-Océan railroad and the human costs and contradictions of modern empire. The Congo-Océan railroad stretches across the Republic of Congo from Brazzaville to the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noir. It was completed in 1934, when Equatorial Africa was a French colony, and it...

Who was Radha, and why has she captured the imagination of so many writers across centuries? No other goddess combines the elements of bhakti and shringara quite as exquisitely as the divine milkmaid. She spans a vivid rainbow of imagery-from the playfulness of the Ras Lila to the soulfulness of...

"Every year, our planet loses over 150 species of plants and animals, and India is very much in the midst of this mass ‘sixth extinction’. We are losing species in our backyard—where are the once ubiquitous sparrows, or the fireflies that lit up our nights? And in the forests, iconic...

"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...

Manu said that a woman’s dharma is to be mother, daughter, sister and wife in service of men, regardless of the caste. In modern times we call this patriarchy. In the Veda, the need to control and favour hierarchy, is an expression of an anxious mind.Hindu, Buddhist and Jain lore is full of...

«No es lo mismo salir de Cuba que salir de cualquier otro país por primera vez. Salir de Cuba es caer en el mundo». Esta frase resume la mezcla de estallido sensorial y derrumbe psicológico que desbordó al periodista Abraham Jiménez Enoa después de exiliarse en 2022 en Barcelona. Todo era...

A reissue of a hidden gem from the award-winning author of Sugar, this novel tells the story of a woman who uncovers the fragility of life and the enduring strength of family love. Camilla’s childhood was immersed in love and chaos, and steeped in perfection. As an adult she hasn’t looked...

In this classic novella, harried human explorers must try to figure out the lifeways and motivations of some extremely strange and enigmatic alien creatures on one of the strangest planets ever portrayed in science fiction - and do it all before the clock runs out...

Ob Kleinkindlyrik oder Nonsensklassiker, ob Lyrik-Parodien oder hehre Dichtkunst: Robert Gernhardt führt in seiner berühmten Poetikvorlesung durch die Höhen und Tiefen der Kunst, Gedichte zu schreiben. Und darin geht es zu, wie in jedem durchschnittlichen Haus: im Kinderzimmer sitzen Peter Rühmkorf und H. M. Enzensberger und spielen und singen.

This story is actually a daily account of a naturalist's years of observing and writing about zoological and insect life on her estate. It takes place in the late 1890s at The Grove, Stanmore, in England, Mrs. Brightwen's very beautiful and secluded estate. Here, there were woods and shrubberies, a lake, and a large garden that offered a field for Mrs. Brightwen's zoological and insect observations. It was not, however, until her 60th year that she began to be a writer.

Native and imported, sacred and ordinary, culinary and floral, favourites of various kings and commoners over the centuries, trees are the most visible signs of nature in cities, fundamentally shaping their identities. Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth...

Devdutt Pattanaik is the author of over twenty-five books and 500 articles on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Trained in medicine (MBBSfrom Grant Medical College, Mumbai University), he worked in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries for fifteen years before devoting all his...

This book presents a compilation of 10 essays on some of the most influential judgments’ that were passed by the Supreme Court of India and proved to be life-altering for the common man and the democracy of the nation. These judgments by the Indian Judiciary proved that the nation’s legal...