Great Essays

One of America's most versatile writers, author of bestselling biographies such as Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, has assembled a gallery of portraits of (mostly) Americans that celebreate genius, talent, and versatility, and traces his own education as a writer and biographer. In this...

In the half-century since its birth, as Sports Illustrated grew from a struggling start-up to America's preeminent sports magazine, one thing has remained constant: the commitment to great storytelling. That part of the magazine's mission has always been easy to define: Identify the most compelling sports stories of our time and get the best writers in the business to tell them. This book brings together a lineup of writing talent worthy of the Hall of Fame and the classic stories they produced for Sports Illustrated over the past 50 years. Many of the writers whose work is collected here are longtime favorites of SI readers (Frank Deford, Rick Reilly, Steve Rushin, Gary Smith).

A lo largo de la historia, algunos libros han cambiado el mundo. Han transformado la manera en que nos vemos a nosotros mismos y a los demás. Han inspirado el debate, la discordia, la guerra y la revolución. Han iluminado, indignado, provocado y consolado. Han enriquecido vidas, y también las han destruido.

Many authors have traveled and explored the out-of-doors, both in life and then in their books, proving themselves stalwart, audacious, even heroic; Andrew Farkas is not among them. He is brave enough to admit that the outdoors isn’t for him. Instead, in these essays Farkas reports on his bold explorations of a very different territory: the in-of-doors, the waiting rooms, kitchens, malls, bars, theaters, roadside motel rooms, and other places that feature temperature control, protection from rampaging predators, and a higher degree of comfort than can be found outside.

The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of...

One of the great mysteries of Australian life is that a land of sweeping plains, with one of the lowest population densities on the planet, has a shortage of land for houses. As a result, Sydney’s median house price is the second most expensive on Earth, after Hong Kong’s. The escalation in house prices is a pain that has altered Australian society; it has increased inequality and profoundly changed the relationship between generations – between those who have a house and those who don't. Alan Kohler tells the story of how we got into this mess – and how we might get out of it.

An extraordinary wide-ranging collection of essays with “distinctive wordplay and quirky opinions…Christopher Buckley is good company whether you’re looking for two quick pages and a smile, or want to linger” (The New York Times Book Review). Christopher Buckley, like his terrific volume...

A sweeping cultural history of two iconic landmarks that reflect the spirit, character, and values of the US—the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty—and the role they play in shaping American culture, US history, and international relations In Empire and Liberty, historian Dr...

Pulling Down the Barn eloquently recalls author Anne-Marie Oomen's personal journey as she discovers herself an outsider on her family farm located in western Michigan's Oceana County, in the township of Elbridge - a couple hundred acres in the middle of rural America. Written as a series of heartfelt interlocking narratives, this collection of essays portrays the realities of farm life: haying, picking asparagus and cherries, the machinery of tractors and pickers.

CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly As we witness monuments of white Western history fall, many are asking how is Shakespeare still relevant? Professor Farah Karim-Cooper has dedicated her career to the Bard, which is why she...

Ranging from the shattered gentility of Edith Wharton's heroines to racial confrontation in the songs of Nina Simone, American Rhapsody presents a kaleidoscopic story of the creation of a culture. Here is a series of deeply involving portraits of American artists and innovators who have helped to shape the country in the modern age. Claudia Roth Pierpont expertly mixes biography and criticism, history and reportage, to bring these portraits to life and to link them in surprising ways.

Bienvenido a SOBREVALORADO, una obra magistral de Juan David Arbeláez que fusiona el estoicismo, el cinismo, el sarcasmo y el humor negro en un cóctel explosivo de ingenio y reflexión. Inspirándose en la sabiduría atemporal de Marco Aurelio, el emperador filósofo, Arbeláez se embarca en un audaz viaje para despojar a las pretensiones modernas de su brillo superficial y revelar su verdadera esencia.

Created and compiled by Charles Krauthammer before his death, The Point of It All is a powerful collection of the influential columnist's most important works. Spanning the personal, the political and the philosophical, it includes never-before-published speeches and a major new essay about the...

For more than 50 years, Sports Illustrated has been the gold standard of sports writing, and during that time, football - once a popular college pastime, but only a rag-tag professional game - has moved to center stage, taking its unquestioned place as Americas most popular sport. This book brings together dozens of football classics from the pages of Sports Illustrated, featuring the work of such esteemed writers as John O'Hara and Jack Kerouac, Dan Jenkins and George Plimpton, and Don DeLillo.

Are you tired of chasing happiness and only to find it elusive and temporary? Do you yearn for a deeper understanding of the true meaning of life? Look no further than Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life, a book that will send you on a transformative journey toward lasting joy and fulfillment.

By his longtime friend and a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, the definitive biography of Larry McMurtry, the legendary author and screenwriter of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Brokeback Mountain, who transformed our vision of the West. Before Larry McMurtry became one of the...

For acclaimed writer and environmental activist Rick Bass, it can be wearying to dwell relentlessly upon the broken, the fragmented, the dead and dying and doomed to extinction. Activism is a necessary part of the environmental movement, but so is the time-honored celebration of the beauty that inspires us.

In these 65 original stories, we hear of the explosive introduction of World Series Cricket in 1977, which turned a genteel endeavour into a high-octane contest, and the clash of the titans as Packer and Murdoch squared off over the Super League war. We see Rugby Union become a battleground for race and the Olympics an arena for sublime acts of courage and achievement.

In the early 20th century, most African Americans still lived in the South, disenfranchised, impoverished, terrorized by white violence, and denied the basic rights of citizenship. As the Democrats swept into the White House on a wave of black defectors from the Party of Lincoln, a group of...

As the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government completes its current term ahead of the General Elections 2019, it is time to evaluate its performance, specifically in terms of its management of the economy. This book is a critical assessment of five years of the brand of economics Prime...