Literary Essays

The power, anger and fluency of Liang Qichao's writings make him one of the towering figures in modern Chinese literature. He saw his great, almost unmanageable task as an attempt to write China into the new era - to provide an ancient country, devastated by civil war and foreign predators, with the intellectual equipment to renew itself. This selection of pieces shows Liang's extraordinary range and the burning sense of mission which drove him on, attempting to galvanize and refresh an entire nation.

Will Self is one of the most important British novelists of his generation, and he is as acclaimed in the UK for his outstanding, daring journalism as he is for his fiction. Now finally available in America, Junk Mail is an original selection of pieces from Self's nonfiction and journalism that will introduce American listeners to Self as a literary journalist par excellence.

In this thought-provoking, endlessly enlightening, and entertaining essay on the art of the novel, renowned author Milan Kundera suggests that "the curtain" represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has - a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. Here an incomparable literary artist cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization.

In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and the Black artists she esteems. She moves from evoking the haunting strength of Odetta and the rise of soprano popular singers in the 1970s to the forging of a Black women's literary renaissance and the politics of Malcolm X through the lens of Black feminism.

Thirty years have passed since Cornel West's book Race Matters rose to the top of the bestseller lists in 1993. Yet his book remains as relevant as ever to American culture-even more so, if one considers its influence on contemporary racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, prison justice, and the fight for police reform. Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope looks back to the original 1993 text and forward into the future of racial understanding and healing in our current century.

Setting out to create a collection of J. Frank Dobie’s writing that brings him to life and makes him relevant to current generations, Steven L. Davis has combed through the works of this renowned Texas author, gathering together in one volume Dobie’s most vital writings. Dobie’s stories and essays here are meticulously edited to prune away some of the brushy undergrowth and bring Dobie’s folksy, erudite voice bounding back to life.

Over the last decade, William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist. American Audacity gathers Giraldi's fierce and witty considerations of American writers and themes, including a never-before-published appreciation of James Baldwin and an introductory call to arms for 21st-century American literature.

In a book that begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies, Eula Biss explores race in America. Her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays - teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting for an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago’s most diverse neighborhood.

青春像泼了墨，那斑驳的痕迹是点点回忆，如梭的时光没有放过任何精彩花絮以及不动声色的故事。而我知道，我们总能在回首时找到痕迹……青春像潑了墨，那斑駁的痕跡是點點回憶，如梭的時光沒有放過任何精彩花絮以及不動聲色的故事。而我知道，我們總能在回首時找到痕跡……

Walter Benjamin (1892 - 1940), war vieles: Philosoph, Kulturkritiker, Übersetzer - aber auch ein Schriftsteller. Auf der Flucht vor den Nazis, die Frankreich besetzt hatten, nahm er sich an der spanischen Grenze das Leben. Sein Essay Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften beweist außerordentlich eindrucksvoll, dass eine an sich wissenschaftliche Analyse großer Literatur selbst große Literatur sein kann!

Which famous author died of caffeine poisoning? Why was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland banned in China? Who was the first British writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? What was Truman Capote superstitious about? Here is a light-hearted book about books and the people who write them for all lovers of literature. A treasure trove of compelling facts, riveting anecdotes, and extraordinary characters, For the Love of Books is a book about books - and the inside stories about the people who write them.

Diciotto canzoni, diciannove donne straordinarie. Simone Sarasso, autore innamorato della montagna e della fatica, racconta le eroine del trail running con le canzoni che sono diventate, concerto dopo concerto, la colonna sonora della sua vita. Una raccolta di ritratti non convenzionali. Dagli AC/DC ai Green Day, dai Doors ai Metallica passando per le sonorità più ricercate (ma non per questo meno selvagge) delle Bikini Kill e dei Pogues, Sarasso ripercorre le carriere delle atlete più forti del panorama italiano e internazionale.

Wieso wohnt das Glück in Osnabrück? Weshalb ist der "kleine Prinz" bei Diktatoren beliebt? Und warum sind die Türen in Dessau so niedrig? In seinen erstmals versammelten meisterhaften Reportagen und Betrachtungen schreibt Harald Martenstein die Biographie eines Landes, das sich so radikal und komisch gewandelt hat wie seine eigene Generation: von Heinz Erhardt zu Attac, von der Kneippkur zur Schwarmintelligenz.

A selection from the John Updike audio collection.

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.

Presented here are 3 short works by Virginia Woolf, each a unique consideration of the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The essays included are: The Father: Woolf's ruminations of family and, particularly, the father within the works of Dostoyevsky. More Dostoyevsky: Further thoughts on Dostoyevsky's work, an author of whom she once wrote “It is directly obvious that he is the greatest writer ever born." In Cranford: A comedic exploration of Dostoyevsky's work where Woolf transplants the great master into English provincial life to explore the unique nature of his work and the English nature.

良寛さんといえば、山寺で子どもと毬をついているイメージ。 が、爺になっても実家のすねかじって女と暮らしていたり、と知ってどうなの！と思ったり･･･「災難に逢う時節には、災難に逢うがよく候。死ぬ時節には、死ぬがよく候。是はこれ災難をのがるる妙法にて候。」等の考え方にふれて、やっぱりすごい人だと思ったり･･･ 要するに人間味の強い器のおおきい方だったのでしょう。 そんな良寛禅師の書。上手に見せようとするのではなく、「一つの点を打つ」「一つの棒を引く」筆運びをしてかきあげたという書。 北大路魯山人にいわせると、良寛さんの類まれなる書はその器の大きさである、ということのようだ。太閤秀吉の書をひきあいに出したりしながら展開されるこの作品は、筆者から良寛さんにおくるレブレターである。

まったくウルサイおやじである。 素晴らしいマグロがないとお話にならないとか（私はマグロはあったら食うけどなくてもいい）、飯に昆布や砂糖をいれたのはだめだとか（入れてました）。 店の経営方法やら、大正の人格やら、客の格やら、下世話で遠慮がない。 そこがおもしろいのが悔しい。 偉そうに！･･･と思いながら耳をそらせない。 寿司の人気の理由は「肴と飯が安直にいっしょに食べられるところが時代の人気に投じたものだろう。」などと日本料理の横綱かたなしだ。

こうるさいおやぢが目にみえるようである。 小煩い名を成した食通のセンセイが、眉間にシワをよせ、足を組み、指をたて て振り回しながら講釈を垂れている。 真剣に。 心の底から真剣に、横丁のおばさんにむかって。 横丁のおばさんにむかって、料理人たちに語りかけるときとおなじくらい心の 底から真剣に。 だしの素つかっているワタクシにそんなこと言われてもな。 苦笑いである。 でも、今晩は、ちょっとだしの素の説明書読んでから出汁を取ろうかな・・

歴史に名を刻む人は、安楽な人生を送れないようになっているのか。 貧しい家に生まれ、両親は離婚、そののち父は自殺、養子に出されるが、画家 を志して決別、生母に巡りあうも拒絶され・・・這い上がるように名を成すも 戦争・敗戦・不遇な日々がーー 運命が人を選ぶのか。 人が運命を選ぶのか。 「人が運命を選ぶのだ。」と魯山人ならいうだろう、と、確信する。 本作品をしれば貴方もそう思われることだろうと思う。 これは単なる料理の書ではない、人生の書である。