Showing titles in Essays

Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others.

Flower is a book of realistic admissions, likes, dislikes, memories and no-brainer observations, treating personal truth as unavailable – something that must be made up and convincing. Taking cues from confessional literature, his daughter’s improvised games, poor internet writing and shitty AI, Ed Atkins, in his first work of non-fiction, equivocates between inanity and divinity, ease and pain, sentimentality and sterility.

La cocaina: la merce più usata, trafficata, desiderata del nostro tempo. Le infinite vie del narcotraffico, dal Messico alle spiagge di Miami, dalla Colombia alla Russia, dall'Africa alle strade di Milano, New York, Parigi. Il viaggio di un grande scrittore nei gironi infernali del mondo contemporaneo, dove la ferocia dilaga incontrastata ma i boss hanno imparato tutte le regole più sofisticate del business. Uno straordinario romanzo-verità.

'This book is a glowing achievement by one of the best essayists of her generation' Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff ‘Witty, fresh and full of life’ Liv Little Kimberly McIntosh has lived a full life, with a loving family, messy friendships, mind-expanding travel and all-night parties. She’s also...

GUARDIAN MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019 'The you-gotta-read-this anthology' Stylist 'This collection showcases the joy, empathy and fierceness needed to adopt the country as one's own' Publishers Weekly An urgent collection of essays by first- and second-generation immigrants, exploring what it's like...

Self-Reliance is a life-changing experience - its message of nonconformity, self-expression, and personal independence can awaken you to a new, and better, way of living. Now, historian and New Thought scholar Mitch Horowitz has deftly and faithfully retained the most powerful ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson's original classic, and reintroduced this work in this one-of-a-kind condensation. Listenable within the space of an average commute or lunch hour, the experience of Self-Reliance may represent a true turning point in your life.

‘Oliver Sacks is a perfect antidote to the anaesthetic of familiarity. His writing turns brains and minds transparent’ - Observer When Oliver Sacks, a physician by profession, injured his leg while climbing a mountain, he found himself in an unusual position – that of patient. The injury...

A key figure in the Latin American literary renaissance, Octavio Paz focuses here on literature and art, drugs, the murder of God, and ethical and political problems.

In the first part of this acclaimed work, Octavio Paz sets forth his credo as an artist and a poet. Part two deals with themes more specific to the late '60s and '70s, such as the drug experience and modern atheism. In part three, Paz concerns himself with politics and ethics. In no way diminished by time, every chapter in this book is an adventure of the mind.

In his great triptych The Millennium, Bosch used oranges and other fruits to symbolize the delights of Paradise. Whence Henry Miller's title for this, one of his most appealing books; first published in 1957, it tells the story of Miller's life on the Big Sur, a section of the California coast where he lived for 15 years. Big Sur is the portrait of a place - one of the most colorful in the United States - and of the extraordinary people Miller knew there.

How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our lives? These familiar words—beautiful, aspirational—are sometimes even true. But award-winning novelist Elaine Castillo has more ambitious hopes for our reading culture, and in this collection of linked essays, she moves to wrest reading away from the aspirations of uniting people in empathetic harmony and reposition it as thornier, ultimately more rewarding work.

Unlike anything Joyce Carol Oates has written before, A Widow’s Story is the universally acclaimed author’s poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of Raymond Smith, her husband of forty-six years, and its wrenching, surprising aftermath. A recent recipient of National Book...

David Sedaris returns with his first collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso. Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky...

On 18th February 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry left a visiting card at the Albemarle Club on which he had written: "To Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite." The accusation led to a series of three trials and the imprisonment of Wilde. This compelling dramatic recreation has been carefully compiled from the original trial transcripts.

In The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the themes - both human and literary - that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we’ve come to expect from Franzen....

"This book doesn’t offer easy answers, but it offers something better—a way of seeing our shared vulnerability as the starting point for understanding what’s breaking and what still might be saved.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​" —Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected...

In little time, Loy has become one of the most powerful advocates of the Buddhist worldview, explaining like no one else its ability to transform the sociopolitical landscape of the modern world. In this, his most accessible work to date, he offers sharp and even shockingly clear presentations of oft-misunderstood Buddhist staples - the working of karma, the nature of self, the causes of trouble on both the individual and societal levels - and the real reasons behind our collective sense of "never enough", whether it's time, money, sex, security...even war.

Biographer Michael Shelden called Orwell’s Politics and the English Language “his most important essay on style”. First published in 1946, the essay exploded the language trends of the time and served as an inflection point in the debate about communication in the 20th century. This collection of essays published 1946-48 provides a comprehensive critique of the status of politics and speech in the mid-century.

Sebastian Haffners "Geschichte eines Deutschen" handelt von einem Jungen aus bürgerlicher Familie, der den Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges als Zerstörung seines Ferienidylls empfindet. Der die galoppierende Inflation 1923 beobachtet, mit ihren jugendlichen Aktienspekulanten und hilflosen Vätern, ihrem Januskopf von Hunger und Verschwendung...

This is not a book about politics. It is a book about what makes us British, and what makes us European. Spend time with some of your favourite writers and artists in this truly unique collection spanning everything from art, language, food, music and movies, to war, literature, driving, nudity...

One-of-a-kind cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman “offers up great facts, interesting cultural insights, and thought-provoking moral calculations in this look at our love affair with the anti-hero” (New York magazine). Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist”...