Essays, Criticism, Memoirs
SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 50 BOOKS
Written by Smith, Daniel
The book has a unique status as an emblem of human culture and civilization. It is a vessel for sharing stories, dispersing knowledge, examining the nature of our extraordinary species and imagining what lies beyond our known world. Books ultimately provide an invaluable and comprehensive record of what it means to be human.
LIGHT ROOM
Written by Zambreno, Kate
From "one of our most formally ambitious writers" (Esquire), a moving account of caretaking in a time of uncertainty and loss "Kate Zambreno's writing is mysterious, unclassifiable, and yet intimate and familiar," Jenny Zhang has written.
TALES OF MERLIN, ARTHUR, AND THE MAGIC ARTS: FROM THE WELSH CHRONICLE OF THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD
Written by Gruffydd, Elis
The original Welsh stories of these beloved characters and their world for the first time in English The stories in Tales of Merlin, Arthur, and the Magic Arts deal with well-known figures from medieval Britain who will be familiar to many readers--though not from the versions presented here.
WONDER CONFRONTS CERTAINTY: RUSSIAN WRITERS ON THE TIMELESS QUESTIONS AND WHY THEIR ANSWERS MATTER
Written by Morson, Gary Saul
A noted literary scholar traverses the Russian canon, exploring how realists, idealists, and revolutionaries debated good and evil, moral responsibility, and freedom. Since the age of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov, Russian literature has posed questions about good and evil, moral responsibility, and human freedom with a clarity and intensity found nowhere else.
NARROW CAGE AND OTHER MODERN FAIRY TALES
Vasily Eroshenko was one of the most remarkable transnational literary figures of the early twentieth century: a blind multilingual Esperantist from Ukraine who joined left-wing circles in Japan and befriended the famous modernist writer Lu Xun in China. Born in a small Ukrainian village in imperial Russia, he was blinded at a young age by complications from measles.
DIRTY BOOKS: EROTIC FICTION AND THE AVANT-GARDE IN MID-CENTURY PARIS AND NEW YORK
Written by Reay, Barry
Between the 1930s and the 1950s, in New York and in Paris, daring publishers such as Obelisk Press, Olympia Press and Grove Press were producing banned pornographic literature, written by young, impecunious writers, poets, and artists, many anonymously. Some of those involved were, or became, famous, while others drifted back into penury and obscurity.
TOLSTOY TOGETHER: 85 DAYS OF WAR AND PEACE WITH YIYUN LI
Written by A Public Space
"You know how, very occasionally in your life, there's a 'before and after' reading experience? Well, reading War and Peace with Tolstoy Together has been that for me--a milestone not just in reading but in living."--Michael Langan From the acclaimed author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, a book about the art of reading.
STORY OF A POEM: A MEMOIR
Written by Zapruder, Matthew
"Story of a Poem is the luminous, lyrical meditation on wringing beauty from suffering and air, threaded with a singular, moving story about parenting an atypical child. I read it in a single gulp, and you will too." --Mary Karr, Bestselling author of The Liars' Club and Cherry
QUESTIONS THAT MATTER MOST: READING, WRITING, AND THE EXERCISE OF FREEDOM
Written by Smiley, Jane
One of California's leading writers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, presents her first nonfiction volume on writing since 2005's best-selling Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.
ADULT DRAMA: AND OTHER ESSAYS (ORIGINAL)
Written by Beach, Natalie
From the writer whose New York Magazine piece "I Was Caroline Calloway" broke the internet, comes a fresh, incisive, laugh-out-loud funny memoir-in-essays about the frenzied journey to adulthood. Natalie Beach became an internet sensation when her essay on her toxic friendship with Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway went viral.