Literary Essays

Judith Thurman, a prolific staff writer at The New Yorker for more than two decades, has gathered a selection of her essays and profiles in A Left-Handed Woman. They consider our culture in all its guises: literature, history, politics, gender, fashion, and art, though their paramount subject is the human condition. Thurman is one of the preeminent essayists of our time—"a master of vivisection," as Kathryn Harrison wrote in the New York Times. "When she's done with a subject, it's still living, mystery intact."

Ghalib's poetic trajectory begins from Urdu, then moves to composing almost entirely in Persian and finally swings back to Urdu. It is nearly as complex as his poetry. However, his poetic output in Persian is far more than what he wrote in Urdu. More important is that he gave precedence to Persian over Urdu. Ghalib's voice presents us with a double bind, a linguistic paradox. Exploring his life, works and philosophy, this authoritative critical biography of Ghalib opens a window to many shades of India and the subcontinent's cultural and literary tradition.

In this deeply personal reflection, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri explores the art of the book jacket from the perspectives of both reader and writer. Probing the complex relationships between text and image, author and designer, and art and commerce, Lahiri delves into the role of the uniform; explains what book jackets and design have come to mean to her; and how, sometimes, "the covers become a part of me".

A selection from the John Updike audio collection.

Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year.

The Tashkent-born Russian-American literary critic, editor, essayist, and journalist Vladislav Davidzon has been covering post-Soviet Ukraine for the past ten years, a tumultuous time for that country and the surrounding world. In late 2015, a year and a half after the 2014 Revolution swept away the Moscow-leaning kleptocratic President Viktor Yanukovich, Davidzon and his wife founded a literary journal, The Odessa Review. This eagerly anticipated debut tells the real story of what happened in Ukraine from the keen and resilient perspective of an observer at its center.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, renowned marine biologist and co-founder of the All We Can Save climate initiative, compiles the best science and nature writing of the year.

Aleister Crowley left behind a literary legacy of hundreds of examples of his authorship, in diverse categories of writing. Collected here is a sampling of those writings.

Many creatures lurk in the dark, weaving on top of one another, roiling together like waves on the night sea. The darkness forms in layers to encompass the land, fill the corners, and obscure angles. Untold mysteries lie just beyond reach told in many tongues, many inflections, many rhythms. The stories are many. Innumerable. Legion.

Culinary creator, writer and community advocate, Sohla El-Waylly selects the best twenty articles published in 2021 that celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country.

In this engaging audio edition, find out why Wilderness Essays is the top-selling book by John Muir. Wilderness Essays is an essential collection of the finest essays ever written by the “Father of the National Parks.” An ardent outdoorsman, a gifted writer, a dedicated preservationist, and a spiritual beacon, John Muir conveys here the boundless love and wonder of the natural world that drove his critically important work.

Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted-playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark. The Writer’s Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today’s favorite authors.

Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, and How Fiction Works - books that established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation - The Fun Stuff confirms Wood’s preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of the contemporary novel. In 23 passionate, sparkling dispatches - which range over such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Edmund Wilson, and Mikhail Lermontov - Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel.

In a volume he describes as "a series of covert and not-so-covert autobiographical pieces", Jonathan Lethem explores the nature of cultural obsession, in his case, with examples as diverse as western films, comic books, the music of Talking Heads and Pink Floyd, and the New York City subway. Along the way, he shows how each of these "voyages out from himself" have led him home, home to his father's life as a painter, and to the source of his beginnings as a writer.

A selection from the John Updike audio collection.

Born on the West Coast, the son of Bronx-born parents, Steve Wasserman is a generalist and public intellectual but is perhaps less well known as a cultural essayist and social critic of the first rank. In thirty splendid essays, originally published in such diverse publications as The New Republic and The Nation, The American Conservative and The Progressive, The Village Voice and The Economist, Wasserman delivers a riveting account of the awakening of an empathetic sensibility and a lively mind.

Sayed Kashua has been praised by The New York Times as "a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society". An Arab-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist together. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to telling the Palestinian story.

Virginia Hamilton (1936-2002) was not only one of the most magnificent writers who ever lived — winning honors such as the Newbery Medal, Newbery Honor, National Book Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award for classics like The House of Dies Drear, The People Could Fly, M. C. Higgins the Great, and Her Stories — she was one of the greatest thinkers we ever had on children's literature.

Wenn sich einer der profiliertesten deutschsprachigen Autoren unserer Zeit mit dem Thema Humor in der Literatur auseinandersetzt, braucht er gute Gründe. Sven Regener hatte sie: Er war 2016 eingeladen, als Inhaber der GrimmProfessur der Universität Kassel eine PoetikVorlesung zu halten und er schlägt sich, seit er Romane veröffentlicht, damit herum, dass diese als witzig, komisch, humorvoll gelten, obwohl sie eigentlich traurige Geschichten erzählen von Leuten, die es im Leben nicht leicht haben und bei denen das Scheitern stets wahrscheinlicher ist als das Gelingen.

Hätte Shakespeare eine Schwester gehabt, ebenso begabt wie er, wie wäre es ihr ergangen? Welche Widerstände mussten Jane Austen oder die Brontë-Schwestern überwinden? Im Oktober 1928 hielt Virginia Woolf zwei Vorträge am ersten Frauencollege Großbritanniens an der Universität Cambridge. Ob ihnen bewusst sei, fragte Woolf ihre Zuhörerinnen, dass sie vielleicht "das am häufigsten abgehandelte Tier des Universums" seien? Schließlich wurde Literatur über Frauen fast ausschließlich von Männern verfasst. Aus Woolfs Vorträgen entstand der Essay Ein Zimmer für sich allein, den sie ein Jahr später veröffentlichte.