Essays Social

The police murders of two Black men, Philando Castile and George Floyd, frame this searing exploration of the historical and fictional narratives that white America tells itself to justify and maintain white supremacy. From the country's founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, David Mura unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present.

Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives - but not everyone regularly sees themselves on the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all - regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability - have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature.

Salman Rushdie's Imaginary Homelands is an important record of one writer's intellectual and personal odyssey. The 70 essays collected here, written over the last 10 years, cover an astonishing range of subjects.

Serenity Found takes the contents of Finding Serenity even further, exploring not just the show but the events of the film as well, to create an anthology that's even more thought-provoking, fascinating, and far-thinking than its predecessor.

When Phil Klay left the marines a decade ago after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself a part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences—for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war—from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens?

As the creator of "Cathy", Cathy Guisewite found her way into the hearts of fans more than 40 years ago and has been there ever since. Her hilarious and deeply relatable look at the challenges of womanhood in a changing world became a cultural touchstone for women everywhere. Now, Guisewite returns with her signature wit and warmth in this debut essay collection about another time of big transition, when everything starts changing and disappearing without permission: aging parents, aging children, aging self stuck in the middle.

The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end - if indeed it will - and why we can't stop fantasizing about it.

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses. In this collection of essays and poems, the works of three transcendentalist authors are shared, each with their own impressions and opinions supporting the movement.

Boldly claiming a space in which people with disabilities can be seen and heard as they are-not as others perceive them - About Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to those with disabilities, but also to their families, coworkers, and support networks, the authors in About Us offer intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them.

Pathways is a collection of Quintus Curtius’ very best short essays from 2015. Speaking in an original and compelling voice, these essays cover an amazing variety of subjects in history, philosophy, current events, ethics, biography, physical health, travel, and language.

Collecting the most celebrated stories from the hit podcast RISK!, along with all-new true tales about explosive secrets and off-the-wall adventures, this book paints a spellbinding portrait of the transformational moments we experience in life but rarely talk about. No topics are off-limits in RISK!, no memories too revealing to share. From accidentally harboring a teen fugitive to being poisoned while tripping on LSD in the Mayan ruins, these stories transport readers into uncharted territory and show how your life can change when you take an extraordinary leap.

Everybody Loves a Good Drought is the established classic on rural poverty in India. Twenty years after publication, it remains unsurpassed in the scope and depth of reportage, providing an intimate view of the daily struggles of the poor and the efforts, often ludicrous, made to uplift them. An illuminating introduction accompanying this 20-anniversary edition reveals, alarmingly, how a large section of India continues to suffer in the name of development so that a small percentage may prosper.

The essays in this fascinating volume examine present-day psychological and cultural problems with the keen insight and humanistic sympathies characteristic of Erich Fromm's work. The Dogma of Christ provides some of the sharpest critical insights into how the contemporary world of human destructiveness and violence can no longer separate religion, psychology, and politics. The book brilliantly summarizes Fromm's ideas on how culture and society shape our behavior.

The essays in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics have a rather special place in Schopenhauer’s work, both being written as entries to Scandinavian philosophy competitions, one in Norway and one in Sweden.

With makeup and an affected Elvis pout, Tucson’s Charlie Schmid was a crude parody of a bad-boy heartthrob. In 1964, he still had a hold on girls who’d follow him anywhere. He murdered three of them. It was the dawn of the free-love movement - perfect for a magnetic madman who’d also foreshadow its end a few years later in the malignant charisma of Charles Manson. The inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, Schmid, the most bizarre serial killer of any era, was the epitome of a narcissist flattered into believing he could get away with murder.

"Je suis convaincue de l'urgence morale qu'il y a à nous atteler à imaginer ensemble une éducation différente pour nos enfants, pour tenter de créer un monde plus juste à l'égard des femmes et des hommes." À une amie qui lui demande quelques conseils pour élever selon les règles de l'art du féminisme la petite fille qu'elle vient de mettre au monde, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie répond sous la forme d'une missive enjouée, non dénuée d'ironie, qui prend vite la tournure d'un manifeste.

This book is for and about the women who kicked in doors, as pioneers of their craft or making politics central to their sound: those who offer a new way of thinking about the vast spectrum of women in music. In this radical departure from the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman’s Work challenges the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature, and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space.

After more than 20 years away, Alda Sigmundsdottir returned to her native Iceland as a foreigner. With a native person's insight yet an outsider's perspective, Alda quickly set about dissecting the national psyche of the Icelanders. This second edition, from 2018, contains new and updated chapters from the original edition, reflecting the changes in Icelandic society and among the Icelandic people since the book was first published in 2012.

Invisible in the food we eat, the people we kiss, and inside our own bodies, viruses flourish - with the power to shape not only our health, but our social, political, and economic systems. Drawing on his expertise in microbiology, Joseph Osmundson brings listeners under the microscope to understand the structure and mechanics of viruses and to examine how viruses like HIV and COVID-19 have redefined daily life. Virology is a critical warning, a necessary reflection, and a call for a better future.

Hustvedt displays her expansive intellect and interdisciplinary knowledge in this collection that moves effortlessly between stories of her mother, grandmother, and daughter to artistic mothers, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, and Louise Bourgeois, to the broader meanings of maternal in a culture shaped by misogyny and fantasies of paternal authority. Mothers, Fathers, and Others is a polymath’s journey into urgent questions about familial love and hate, human prejudice and cruelty, and the transformative power of art.