Essay Essays

On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writer's Diary with the words "too much and not the mood." She was describing how tired she was of correcting her own writing, of the "cramming in and the cutting out" to please other readers, wondering if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying. The character of that sentiment, the attitude of it, inspired Durga Chew-Bose to write and collect her own work. The result is a lyrical and piercingly insightful collection of essays and her own brand of essay-meets-prose poetry about identity and culture.

Includes an introduction written and read by Jesmyn Ward, a foreword written and read by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan, and an afterword written and read by Professor James L. W. West III The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family...

Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices past and present that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, and more.

USA TODAY BESTSELLER A liberatory anthology of twenty-seven writers—a community in book form—charting paths ahead for action and care in the face of political uncertainty, curated by Maggie Smith and Saeed Jones. Inspired by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith’s conversations in the wake of the...

From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing. Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and...

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture”...

A blazing collection of responses to the U.S.'s shocking annexation threats and the swell of Canadian national unity that followed, from a remarkable array of Canada's sharpest and most influential minds. 2025. Donald Trump is president. And he is insisting that Canada is for sale. It feels...

From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons - a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced. Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more-than-human.

An electric, searing memoir by the original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Hey girlfriend I got a proposition goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want Kathleen Hanna’s band Bikini Kill embodied the punk scene of the 90s, and today her personal...

Enjoy an anthology of short stories, poems, and essays by Tony Martello. Some stories and poems are reprints while others have yet to be discovered. Included is a personal essay on his perspective of the COVID-19 shutdown. Some called it a curse while others discovered opportunities in its wake!

When Dave Fromm graduated from college with good grades and high LSAT scores, he planned to apply to law school. But he actually wasn't that sure he wanted to go, at least not right away. A few years earlier, he'd been to Prague for a vacation and played a game of pickup basketball there. He was a decent basketball player, though not good enough to make the team at Boston College either time he'd tried out. So he did the kind of thing we'd all do if we had the guts (and a foolhardy sense of determination) - he moved to Prague to play basketball, even though he didn't speak Czech, or know anyone in Prague, or if the Czechs had basketball leagues.

National Best Seller From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.” M Train...

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 those who dare, things often go wrong on the sea. Deep Blue offers some of literature's greatest stories about the ocean and the people who risk its wrath. Castaways, pirates, and victims of shipwreck all fight to survive in far-flung places and under harrowing circumstances. Together, these works offer a convincing reminder of the sea's dangers and mysteries.

First published more than seventy-five years ago in the inaugural issue of Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, Albert Einstein's "Why Socialism?" is an unheralded classic. Written during the McCarthyite witch-hunt in the United States, it constituted an act of defiance, making a case for socialism unrivaled in its time or ours. Yet, its very existence has been an embarrassment to an establishment which has continually sought to downplay the significance of his iconoclastic essay, together with Einstein's socialism itself.

The first of its kind, a unique volume of twenty-one unpublished gems from one of the twentieth century’s most popular and prolific writers Using his father’s handwritten notes, journal entries, and correspondences, Beau L’Amour uncovers how and why many never-before-seen manuscripts...

The book is a collection of texts by contemporary Ukrainian intellectuals: writers, historians, philosophers, political analysts, opinion leaders. The texts have been written for an international audience. The collection combines reflections on Ukraine's history (or histories, in plural), and analysis of the present, conceptual ideas and life stories.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this captivating memoir, Whit Fraser weaves scenes from more than fifty years of reporting and living in the North with fascinating portraits of the Dene and Inuit activists who successfully overturned the colonial order and politically reshaped Canada—including his wife...

A masterpiece of warrior wisdom that shows how to overcome obstacles with positive action. The best-selling author, Navy SEAL, and humanitarian Eric Greitens offers a self-help book unlike any other. Two years ago, Eric Greitens unexpectedly heard from a former SEAL comrade, a brother-in-arms he...

What begins as celebration gives way to betrayal, shattering the trust between two families “Exquisitely crafted.” —John Irving “Masterly…Ranges from the most exquisite, Jamesian discriminations to the graspable, all-American solidities of Updike and Richard Yates. This is a writer to...