Essays

The great insights of the Stoics are spread over a wide range of ancient sources. This book brings them all together for the first time. It systematically presents what the various Stoic philosophers said on every important topic, accompanied by an eloquent commentary that is clear and concise...

“A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment...

On Lust and On Longing together for the first time. Here are the raw and timeless themes of the power and powerlessness inherent to lust, love, loss and death....

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics....

The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyric essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders. Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying...

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life describes his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years....

Welcome to the magnificent Making It Up as I Go Along - aka the World According to Marian Keyes - A bold and brilliant collection of Marian's hilarious and often heartfelt observations on modern life, love and everything in between. From a guide to breaking up with your hairdresser to...

The collection of 10 absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter....

In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality. "There is a signature motif discernible in...

Without question one of the most significant books in modern history, The Communist Manifesto is a brief, populist pamphlet....

Published in 1938, Three Guineas is Virginia Woolf’s powerful reckoning with war and tyranny, wherein she argues that women’s rights are inherently linked to the struggle against violence.

Brought to you by Penguin. Drawing on more than 30 years of therapeutic encounters with people facing hurdles in their love lives, former chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council Susanna Abse takes us deep inside one of the most fascinating realms there is: other people's relationships...

According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore Bell Hooks's electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As Hooks...

A group of notable writers - including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow - celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past....

**SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER** This book is about learning to live. Echoing Socrates' statement that the unexamined life not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws on his twenty-five years of work and more than 50,000 hours of conversations to form a collection of beautifully rendered tales...

A collection of David Foster Wallace’s witty and deeply observant essays exploring everything from lobster festivals and politics to the nature of human suffering, from the bestselling author of Infinite Jest. "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the Lobster proves once more why Wallace should...

We all know the names: Jacinda Ardern, Kamala Harris, Tony Blair, Justin Trudeau, John Howard, Sanna Marin, Nelson Mandela, and Julia Gillard. But what about the people standing just behind them? In The Right Hand, Missing Perspectives founder Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks sits down with the chiefs of...

"On the Origin of Species must be high on any serious list of the most important and influential books ever written. On its first publication in 1859, Thomas Henry Huxley exclaimed 'How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that.' Charles Darwin's revolutionary idea is, indeed, an...

Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag's first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the famous essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation," as...

Bloomsbury presents Girlhood written and read by Melissa Febos. National Book Critics Circle Award Winner National Bestseller Lambda Literary Award Finalist NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME * NPR * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * Washington Independent Review of Books * The...

In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects....

A literary treasure of over one hundred unpublished letters from National Book Award-winning author Flannery O'Connor and her circle of extraordinary friends. Flannery O’Connor is a master of twentieth-century American fiction, joining, since her untimely death in 1964, the likes of Hawthorne...

A selection of the world’s most incredible things according to award-winning writer, comedian, artist and podcaster Rob Auton I Strongly Believe In Incredible Things is a book of poetic prose, musings, short stories and biro drawings detailing a selection of the Earth’s incredible things by...

A collection of personal essays from America’s most revered essay writer, Joseph Epstein. America’s greatest living essayist writes about life and aging and being all too nicely out of it. In these personal pieces, he takes on topics as varied as grieving for a dead son, learning Latin late...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Arinzé Kene, writer and performer of Olivier Award nominated Misty, and also known for his roles in Youngers, Informer and Eastenders. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones. The Communist...

A treasure chest of never-before-collected essays from Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize–winning memoirist, and his boisterous brother Malachy, publishing on the 30th anniversary of Angela's Ashes, with a foreword by Colum McCann In 1996, a retired New York City high school English teacher...

Books and Culture (1896) is a collection of reflective essays by American critic and editor Hamilton Wright Mabie, exploring why great literature endures and how reading shapes the inner life of the reader. Rather than treating books as sources of information, Mabie presents them as companions...

The world is still full of wonder. We've just been too busy to look. We move through our days half-awake — rushing past the poppies, skipping the concert, ducking in out of the rain and missing the experience waiting around the corner. And then, every so often, something stops us cold. A lilting ballad. A painting in the museum we almost skipped. A friend who holds fast to joy and grace at the absolute edge of everything. In those moments, we remember what it feels like to be fully, achingly alive.

From "The Talk of the Town," Jamaica Kincaid's first impressions of snobbish, mobbish New York Talk Pieces is a collection of Jamaica Kincaid's original writing for the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town," composed during the time when she first came to the United States from Antigua, from 1978 to...

Dreamthorp is a collection of twelve reflective essays by the Scottish poet Alexander Smith, first published in 1863. Taking its name from the quiet, imaginary village where Smith claims to have retired to write, the book blends memoir, literary criticism, and philosophical musing in a leisurely...