Short Essays

John Updike reads six stories he has selected from the hundred-odd he has published. "A&P", recounting a moral crisis on the checkout counter, is his most anthologized story. "Pigeon Feathers," the longest story included, tells of a fourteen-year-old boy's fear of death and the answer he finds...

On the Shortness of Life was written by Seneca around the year 49AD. He argues that we waste so much time because we do not properly value it. We expend great effort in protecting other valuables such as money and property, but because time appears intangible, we allow others to occupy it and take time away from us. Wise people, on the other hand, understand that time is the most valuable of all resources, and with effort can free themselves from external control to engage in meaningful introspection and create an intentional life.

A damning confrontation between the American dream and the reality of undocumented children seeking a new life in the US. Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016...

Certain elements, rituals, and stories have been passed down within the brotherhood of masons from those great workers and architects that created structures from King Solomon’s Temple to the classic churches of the Middle Age. The stories and legends of our progenitor and our first Grandmaster could be true. The layout of the lodge and the offices occupied within the lodges of the Freemasons may indeed date back to the time of King Solomon, yet none of these events explain the strange words, terms, and and military-like events taking place within the lodge today.

Now available for the first time in audio as a digital download, a selection of stories from Grace Paley. Whether writing about relationships, little girls, loving and bickering couples, angry suburbanites, frustrated job-seekers, or Jewish children performing a Christmas play, GRACE PALEY...

Fast-talking, warm-hearted, and endlessly rewatchable, Gilmore Girls has bonded real-life mothers and daughters since 2000, when its iconic pilot introduced us to Lorelai, Rory, and their idyllic Connecticut town of Stars Hollow. More than twenty years later, it has become one of the most-streamed TV shows, ever. In an anthology as intimate and quick-witted as Gilmore Girls itself, bestselling author Ann Hood invites fifteen writers to investigate their personal relationships to the show.

This extraordinary collection of correspondence by Paul Bowles spans eight decades and provides an evolving portrait of an artist renowned for his privacy. From his earliest extant letter, written at the age of four, to his precocious effusions to Aaron Copeland and to Gertrude Stein; from his...

Brilliant, dark stories of women’s lives by “a very major talent” (Joseph O’Connor, Irish Times) In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women’s lives are etched by poverty—material, emotional, sexual—but also splashed by beauty...

Malthus predicted a grim future with geometrical population growth, versus food production that increases only arithmetically. He claimed that this would result in famine and starvation unless births were controlled. It is called the Malthusian catastrophe, in which humans would disregard the limits of natural resources and the world would be plagued by famine and disease.

Ein kleines Buch über Kummer, das erstaunlich gute Laune macht. "Alle wirken innerlich blitzblank, nur in unserem Inneren sieht es aus wie bei Hempels unterm Sofa", denkt sich Kioskbesitzer Armin, als er vergeblich versucht, erfolgreich zu meditieren. Und auch im Inneren der anderen Figuren dieser literarischen Kolumnen herrscht Unordnung: Frau Wiese kann nicht mehr schlafen, Herr Pohl ist nachhaltig verzagt, Lisa hat ihren ersten Liebeskummer, Vadims Hände zittern, Frau Schwerter muss ganz dringend entspannen, ein trauriger Patient hat seine Herde verloren, und Psychoanalytiker Ulrich legt sich mit der Vergänglichkeit an.

Filled with his usual obsessions - sex, booze, gambling - More features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, his tortured, violent relationships with women, and his lurid escapades on the poetry reading circuit. Highlighting his versatility, the book ranges from thinly-veiled autobiography to purely fictional tales of dysfunctional suburbanites, disgraced politicians, and down-and-out sports promoters - climaxing with a long, hilarious adventure among French filmmakers.

Edgar-award winning author Dana Stabenow is best known for her Kate Shugak novels, but the unifying protagonist of almost all her writing - be it crime, fantasy, horror, or science fiction - is Alaska. This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many listeners will expect.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers...

'An oracle' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Articulate[s] a universal, feminine wisdom with such ferocity it feels like she's slapping the reader around the face' OBSERVER 'Equal parts self-lacerating, tender and witty' GLAMOUR 'Furious, sharp, funny, honest' iPAPER On the Waterstones Best Books of 2025 List...

"Narrator Brian Nishii perfectly conveys the author's joy and feelings of isolation at discovering science fiction as a child, the exhilaration of world-building as a science fiction writer, and the imaginative process of predicting our world in 50 years."—AudioFile "We’re mysterious aliens...

The candid, poignant, unforgettable writing of the young girl whose own life story has become an everlasting source of courage and inspiration. Hiding from the Nazis in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building in Amsterdam, a thirteen-year-old girl named Anne Frank became a writer. The...

Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s deeply personal essay explores racial conflict through the prism of his childhood and the influence of his father, a police officer who walked the beat between two worlds.

UG Krishnamurti has been called the ‘anti-guru’, the ‘raging sage’ and the ‘thinker who shuns thought’. UG does not give lectures, has no organizations, does not write books, holds no gatherings and peddles no mantras. Yet he is the most talked-about thinker in India. This biography...

नीलकंठ एक मोर की कहानी है। महादेवी वर्मा ने इसे बड़े सरस और आत्मीय ढंग से लिखा है। इस सुंदर गद्य से गुज़रते हुए हम नीलकंठ के बचपन से लेकर उसके वयस्क मयूर बनने तक की यात्रा में साथ हो लेते हैं। हम उससे ऐसा जुड़ाव महसूस करने लगते हैं कि नीलकंठ का गुस्सा, उसकी उदासी और उसका प्यार हमें महसूस होने लगता है। इस संस्मरण के परिदृश्य में लेखिका का पशु पक्षियों के प्रति अनुराग भी जैसे गूँजता रहता है।