Personal Essay

In this 10th anniversary edition, renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts once again examines the nature of women's roles. From mother to mechanic, sister to soldier, Roberts reveals how much progress has now been made and how much further we have to go. Updated and expanded to include a diverse new cast of women, including Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Billie Jean King, and others, this collection of essays offers tremendous insight into the opportunities and challenges that women encounter today.

Coming out to Mom is a lesbian rite of passage. In the third edition of this landmark anthology, 34 remarkable women face their fears and confusion, prejudice and misunderstandings, and speak honestly and bravely about the difficulties and joys of life with their "different daughters". Among the topics of discussion are family, community, religion, grandchildren, bisexuality, transgenderism, and coming out.

In this pyrotechnic memoir-in-essays, Mak ranges widely over our landscape of paranoia, crisis, and frenetic, clickable consumption. He grants listeners an inside pass to the spaces where culture was made and unmade over the past decade, from the antiseptic glare of white-walled galleries to the darkest corners of Berlin techno clubs. As the gay son of an evangelical minister, Mak fled to those spaces, hoping to join a global, influential elite. But when calamity struck, it forced Mak to confront the costs of mistaking status for belonging.

In The Selfishness of Others, the essayist Kristin Dombek provides a clear-sighted account of how a rare clinical diagnosis became a fluid cultural phenomenon, a repository for our deepest fears about love, friendship, and family. She cuts through hysteria in search of the razor-thin line between pathology and common selfishness, writing with robust skepticism toward the prophets of NPD and genuine empathy for those who see themselves as its victims. And finally, she shares her own story in a candid effort to find a path away from the cycle of fear and blame.

Over the course of four years, the traveling love rally called Together Live brought together diverse storytellers for epic evenings of laughter, music, and hard-won wisdom to huge audiences across the country. Well-known womxn (and the occasional man) from all walks of life shared their most vulnerable truths in a radical act of love, paving the way for healing in the face of adversity.

We live in a world filled with noise—literal, emotional, digital, and internal. But what if the most powerful moments in life are found not in what’s spoken, but in what’s left unsaid? Sounds of Silence is an extraordinary exploration of the quiet spaces that shape our relationships, our spirituality, our memories, and even our sense of self. Across thirty deeply thoughtful chapters, Dr. Laski guides readers through the hidden terrain of silence—not as an absence, but as a presence all its own. You'll walk through the hush of a first kiss, the aching silence after a loss, the quiet ...

In the Absence of the Ordinary frames our current era as a rough initiation—an upending experience of profound trauma and transformation that demands we reorient our ways of thinking, being, and relating. Through essays like “Some People Wake Up…,” “The Gift of Restraint,” and “Gratitude for All That Is,” Weller offers clarity and wisdom on how to face the sobering stakes of our time—while offering the nourishment and support we need to embody the new roles this initiation requires.

The "web" has become our most powerful ecological image of the interconnectedness of all creatures, yet this image predates science, it is present in every culture's anthology. Chief Seattle said "Whatever man does to the web, he does to himself." Award-winning journalist Richard Louv explores the fragile network that connects people and the strands that make it up: nature, childhood, adulthood, spirit, purpose, and community.

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.

Welcome to "Funky Stuff that will Tickle your Brain," a captivating collection of 30 explanations and essays that will ignite your curiosity and expand your knowledge. This book is part of an epic 50-volume series, "Get Smarter One Book at a Time," which covers a wide range of topics from science and philosophy to creativity and adventure. Together, these books aim to nurture a lifelong love of learning and exploration. In this particular volume, you'll embark on a fascinating journey through a diverse array of subjects. From the intricacies of asphalt production and the history of fences ...

Chanakya's Arthashastra is an unrivalled political treatise that has been used by scholars, academics and leaders across the world. In Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich, Radhakrishnan Pillai brings out the inherent lessons from Arthashastra to present a strategic and practical way of wealth creation. This is a holistic study, written for anyone and everyone.

As the Enlightenment movement was gathering strength in the early 18th century, various challenges to established religious faith were launched. In response, a number of celebrated commentators produced defences of religion and morality, and among these was Alexander Pope, who was inspired to write "some pieces on Human Life and Manners." The result was a collection of poems in rhyming couplets, designated "Epistles", which were published in instalments.

Sex and Cupcakes is a collection of essays from writer Rachel Kramer Bussel reflecting on her years as a sex columnist and cupcake blogger, detailing her dirty and sweet sides as well as sexual adventures, politics, heartbreak, tattoos, and more.

How do we add to archives of ecological memory? How can we notice and document what’s missing in the landscapes closest to us? In her debut essay collection, Laura Marris reframes environmental loss by setting aside the catastrophic framework of the Anthropocene in favor of that of the Eremocene, the age of loneliness, which is marked by the dramatic thinning of wildlife populations and by isolation between and among species.

Out of a harrowing childhood in the Philippines, Cinelle Barnes emerged triumphant. But as an undocumented teenager living in New York, her journey of self-discovery was just beginning. Because she couldn’t get a driver’s license or file taxes, Cinelle worked as a cleaning lady and a nanny and took other odd jobs - and learned to look over her shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t get caught.

✨ The journey continues—rawer, and more intimate. 📚 Following the themes explored in the Standard Edition, this Special Edition expands the original reflections with new chapters and a deeper emotional current. For readers who resonated with the original reflections on fear, pain, consumerism, addiction, confidence, purpose, and happiness, this special version offers new meditations on distractions, stress, nonconformism, early rising, the art of letting go and the sacred nature of sex—all presented in the same poetic, minimalist style that touched so many. 🕯 Blending ancient ...

Even though early adulthood doesn’t look just like Sex and the City or Thirteen Going on Thirty the way Eli thought it would, with Does Anyone Else Feel This Way? Eli shows you that you’re not the only one who misses the days when they could swing by the dining hall or just wants to call their mom to make it all go away. With a look at her own misadventures and hard-won life lessons, Eli shares the journey she’s been on to find herself as an adult, and the twists and turns she’s taken while navigating her own quarter-life crisis.

Here is an eyewitness account of the true nature and existence of Hell. Uebert Angel was afforded visitations to Hell by God, and was commanded to let the world know the reality of Hell and to remind the world to choose life and prepare for eternity. As the Lord Jesus appeared to Uebert Angel, he took him on tours of Hell and showed him the suffering there. He saw some of the horrors of Hell and saw many souls in torment. Jesus showed him what happens to souls when they die as unbelievers. He was also shown the horrors purported Christians face in Hell when they reject His grace.

In this poignant, funny, and illuminating essay collection from the hosts of the Podcrushed podcast, Penn Badgley, Sophie Ansari, and Nava Kavelin tackle stories from adolescence and beyond, exploring what it means to come of age at every stage of our lives.

In lieu of a perfect, hypothetical future husband, Mindy Kaling is thinking a lot about being single. Pros? She can marathon any Christine Baranski show she wants. Cons? Dealing with married couples and their condescension at cocktail parties. But until a gorgeous, morally flawless, preferably tall TV dad materializes in three dimensions, Mindy can cope with waiting it out (from the driver’s seat).