American Essays

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”

Split into five sections - Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering - Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians, and Italian divas. Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent, and funny - a gift to readers and writers both.

Listeners will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views - on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example - defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays - on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower - that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies.

In the late ’60s, Ntozake Shange was a student at Barnard College discovering her budding talent as a writer, publishing in her school’s literary journal, and finding her unique voice. By the time she left us in 2018, Shange had scorched blazing trails across countless pages and stages, redefining genre and form as we know them, each verse, dance, and song a love letter to Black women and girls, and the community at large.

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale.

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.

From the royal wedding to boring airplane companions, Samuel Beckett to Margaret Thatcher, "senior moments" to life as a waitress, Maeve's Times gives us wonderful insight into a changing Ireland as it celebrates the work of one of our best-loved writers in all its diversity - revealing her characteristic directness, laugh-out-loud humor, and unswerving gaze into the true heart of a matter.

From the wind-swept, snowy ranges of Wyoming to Florida beaches glowing with Christmas lights, All American Christmas traces holiday traditions across the United States. Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy present a dazzling collection of emotional stories and homegrown Christmas recipes from some of Fox News’ most beloved personalities.

Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.

What was the real significance of William James's breakdown? Of the anti-Semitism in T.S. Eliot's writing? At each step in his latest journey through American cultural history, Menand has an original point to make.

David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Romantic love has been one of the most essential elements of storytelling for centuries. But for Black people in the United States and across the diaspora, it hasn't often been easy to find Black romance joyfully showcased in entertainment media. In this collection, revered authors and sparkling newcomers, librarians and academicians, and avid fans and reviewers consider the mirrors and windows into Black love as it is depicted in the novels, television shows, and films that have shaped their own stories.

This classic collection of essays, edited by Booker T. Washington and with contributions from many of post-Civil War America's other prominent African-American thinkers, sought to redefine the role of Black persons in the new Jim Crow era and beat back white supremacy through racial uplift. Seven essays include Charles Chesnutt's "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", W. E. B. DuBois "The Talented Tenth", and Wilford Horace Smith's "The Negro and the Law" .

From the author of The New York Times best sellers Treason and Slander comes an updated Ann Coulter compendium, complete with reader responses and television and talk radio transcripts (Couric, Donahue, Franken). With titles like "Would Mohamed Atta Object to Armed Pilots?", "9 out of 10 Caribou Support Drilling", and "Liberal Pimps for Clintonism", How to Talk to a Liberal covers Coulter's waterfront on her favorite issues and targets, from national security to Hollywood.

Terry Pratchett has earned a place in the hearts of listeners the world over with his best-selling Discworld series - but in recent years he has become equally well-known and respected as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer's research and animal rights. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together for the first time the finest examples of Pratchett's nonfiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important).

One of the most distinguished voices in American letters, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition. In this wise and wonderous work, Momaday shares stories and memories throughout his life, stories that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound spiritual connection to the American landscape and reverence for the natural world.

Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honor of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice.

General Gustave Perna U.S. Army Retired, Operation Warp Speed Commander "Lt. Col. John McBrearty, a natural leader, combat Veteran, and family man, shares his unique perspective on history through his essays, reflections, and reviews. His personalized style provides the reader with a kaleidoscope of American history, in which he cleverly weaves his own military story within. This is a must-read for all Veterans and American history buffs alike." Having risen from the rank of Private to Lieutenant Colonel, combat veteran John J. McBrearty shares his unique insight of American History through...

The past decade has marked a shift in America's trajectory, pivoting around the monumental presidential election of 2016. Acclaimed author and leading historian Jill Lepore has been documenting the twists and turns as they unfold, beginning with the run-up to Trump's election through to the chaos and confusion left in its wake. In this incisive collection of essays published in the New Yorker, Lepore writes with wit and warmth as she reflects on the issues of our time.