Essay Essays

His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy.

From modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos - in this classic collection of essays, Ursula K. Le Guin roves with her customary audacity over the intersecting arenas of literature, feminism, and social responsibility, exploding any received notions she comes across and revealing visionary possibilities in their stead.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

The Emmy-nominated host of Netflix’s Queer Eye follows up his New York Times-bestselling memoir, Over The Top, with this collection of thought-provoking essays on grief and healing, cannabis reform, LGBTQIA+ rights, imposter syndrome, personal style, the HIV safety net, and of, course, how to make your hairdresser love you.

In the early spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau built and lived in a cabin near the shore of Walden Pond in rural Massachusetts. For the next two years, he enacted his own Transcendentalist experiment, living a simple life based on self-reliance, individualism, and harmony with nature. The journal he kept at that time evolved into his masterwork, Walden, an eloquent expression of a uniquely American philosophy.

From an important new American writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice. In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. In her titular piece, "The Wrong Way to Save Your Life", she answers the question of what has value in our lives - a question no longer rhetorical when the apartment above her family's goes up in flames.

We live in a world drenched in shame. Shame is the core belief not that I did something wrong, but that I am wrong. It severs us from the inherent goodness of our desire, our body, our Eros. This split disconnects us from the beauty of our Unique Selves and fuels many of today's personal and cultural pathologies. Wilhelm Reich called it "the murder of Eros"-and it is not metaphorical, but civilizational.

"Depuis que j'ai quitté le Liban pour m'installer en France, que de fois m'a-t-on demandé, avec les meilleures intentions du monde, si je me sentais plutôt français" ou "plutôt libanais". Je réponds invariablement : "L'un et l'autre !" Non par quelque souci d'équilibre ou d'équité, mais parce qu'en répondant différemment, je mentirais. Ce qui fait que je suis moi-même et pas un autre, c'est que je suis ainsi à la lisière de deux pays, de deux ou trois langues, de plusieurs traditions culturelles. C'est cela mon identité..."

Doctor, angler, and raconteur Donald Thomas takes fishermen on a rollicking road trip through Alaska, Costa Rica, Australia, the Galapagos, and more. Fishing in oceans along the way, he enjoys the kind of adventures most people can only dream of. Each chapter includes a sidebar that gives Thomas an opportunity to riff entertainingly on a particular game fish, as well as an “At a Glance” section with both the current IGFA All-Tackle and Fly-Rod world records for that species.

Every summer for two decades, Ted Leeson and a maverick group of close companions have returned to an old ranch house on the bench-land overlooking the Madison River. Trout and fly fishing may be at the heart of their ritual return, but their experience goes far beyond the fishing. Leeson contemplates both the human and natural landscape brilliantly....

Writing with the same mastery that has won him praise for his fiction, Richards takes us - even those unfamiliar with days spent in chilly waters - on an unforgettable journey to the famed Miramichi River. Casting new light on the mysterious and elegant world of fly fishing, it teems with lore and wisdom, humor, and most of all, passion.

In the 1970s, Joe DeLamielleure led a Buffalo Bills offensive line affectionately called the Electric Company, because they turned the power up. A starter from the first game of his rookie season in 1973, DeLamielleure led the way to the first 2,000-yard season in NFL history.

Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Famines are becoming smaller and rarer, but optimism about the possibility of a famine-free future must be tempered by the threat of global warming. That is just one of the arguments that Cormac Ó Gráda, one of the world's leading authorities on the history and economics of famine, develops in this wide-ranging audiobook, which provides crucial new perspectives on key questions raised by famines around the globe between the 17th and 21st centuries.

After sixty years of keeping notes on the things he's seen and learned and on the golfing greats he's taught, Penick lets the secrets in his Little Red Book be heard by the golf world in this classic work. His simple, direct, practical wisdom pares away all the hypertechnical jargon that's grown up around the game, and lets all golfers play their best - whatever their level.

From the author of the popular newsletter That’s What She Said, Nobody Cares is a frank, funny personal essay collection about work, failure, friendship, and the messy business of being alive in your 20s and 30s. As she shares her hard-won insights from screwing up, growing up, and trying to find her own path, Anne T. Donahue’s debut book offers all the honesty, laughs, and reassurance of a late-night phone call with your best friend.

For the first time, a single volume brings together renowned author Terry McMillan’s previously published short fiction and nonfiction pieces, as well as never-before-seen works. Before McMillan found success as a novelist in the early 1990s, she published provocative, boundary-pushing short stories, capturing the struggles and triumphs of Black life in America with vitality and honesty, from the workaday factory man’s malaise in “The End” to the cast-aside lover’s resolve in “Touching” to the elderly woman’s wiles in “Ma’Dear.”

Karl Kraus gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Aphoristiker deutscher Sprache. Ob berühmte Schriftsteller oder die Presse - nichts und niemand wurde von der Kritik seiner Feder verschont. Bekannte Künstler wie Stefan Zweig, Georg Trakl, Thomas Mann und andere zollten ihm Respekt, aber die Zahl seiner Feinde in Kunst und Gesellschaft war enorm. Als Vorleser hinterließ er aufgrund seiner Sprachgewalt und Persönlichkeit angeblich einen äußerst außergewöhnlichen Eindruck. „Der Biberpelz“ erzählt die auf den ersten akustischen Blick schlichte Geschichte eines Pelzdiebstahls.

The Cool Side of My Pillow is a collection of essays. Don’t let that fancy word fool you. I’m not trying to get highbrow or rant myself blue, but there are experiences and observations outside of the entertainment industry that I feel are worth sharing. What’s it about? Mostly, things that matter to me, like putting in the effort, being honest, and not treating the environment like it’s the enemy.

Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.