Essays Books

Book SynopsisThis Woman''s Work: Essays on Music is edited by Kim Gordon and Sinéad Gleeson and features contributors Anne Enright, Fatima Bhutto, Jenn Pelly, Rachel Kushner, Juliana Huxtable, Leslie Jamison, Liz Pelly, Maggie Nelson, Margo Jefferson, Megan Jasper, Ottessa Moshfegh, Simone White, Yiyun Li and Zakia Sewell.Published to challenge the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman''s Work seeks to confront the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature, and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space. Women have to speak up, to shout louder to tell their story - like the auteurs and ground-breakers featured in this collection, including: Anne Enright on Laurie Anderson; Megan Jasper on her ground-breaking work with Sub Pop; Margo Jefferson on Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald; and Fatima Bhutto on music and dicTrade ReviewThis Woman's Work is a captivating read that brings memories and music into the same space to show how closely they are connected. It will make you want to dig out the songs your mother played to help you fall asleep as a child or the CD that never left your stereo in your teens * The Wire *[This Woman's Work] strikes a chord: "We can't help but surrender to what moves us in the sound even if it seems contradictory or irrational; in fact, our experience of music is full of contradictions," Heather Leigh writes in the introduction. The result is a collection worth tuning in to * Publishers Weekly *By inhabiting the sound worlds these women create, we get to engage with a vast range of ideas, to consider profound concepts of liberty and oppression, of joy and terror. Always there are the notes between, of the unexpected, the nuanced, the bold. . . This Woman's Work is an important collage of tenses, disciplines, perspectives, borders and experiences. * The Quietus *This Woman's Work is a collection of music writing, but in the loosest possible sense. Here, music is the soil in which all manner of stories take seed and bloom * Guardian *Sixteen bright, insightful essays that present an array of trailblazers, geniuses, obsessives * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisThis book is one English professor's assessment of university life in the early 21st century. From rising mental health concerns and trigger warnings to learning management systems and the COVID pandemic, Christopher Schaberg reflects on the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education. Adopting an interdisciplinary public humanities approach, Schaberg considers the frequently exhausting and depressing realities of college today. Yet in these meditations he also finds hope: collaboration, mentoring, less grading, surface reading, and other pedagogical strategies open up opportunities to reinvigorate teaching and learning in the current turbulent decade.Trade ReviewWhat readers may not anticipate and should be delighted by the presence of, is a vast range of topics—seemingly randomly interspersed throughout the book—that break up the chapters of both theoretical musings and practical applications of managing the college literature classroom in the early twenty-first century world of pandemic lockdowns, changing university concerns, and the post-Postmodern world of businessmen in the White House. The honest tone of Schaberg’s prose is refreshingly welcome—he is continuously questioning what he is doing, why, and how is it affecting his students as well as providing critiques of what is wrong with higher education. [...] The optimism and pessimism of our current teaching mode alternate throughout Pedagogy of the Depressed. Schaberg's deepest concerns mirror many of ours. That administration will not see moving online as a fearful, temporary situation, but rather as a new efficient system that eliminates all sorts of issues, including those of class size limits or scheduling issues. We are depressingly isolated from our colleagues and valuable impromptu discussions and collaborations. A bonus? Throughout the book, Schaberg also talks about other texts that speak to the issues he is addressing. This is a great, and much appreciated, way to increase our academic TBR piles. * Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice *How do you teach through trauma? All college instructors have found themselves facing this question in recent days, but few with the insight and poignancy of Christopher Schaberg. Pedagogy of the Depressed provides both diagnosis and balm for those anxious about the possibilities for higher education in the midst of climate change and active shooter events and pandemic response and budgetary collapse, a profound reckoning with the conditions of learning today. * Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA, and author of Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University *If the title page didn’t say Christopher Schaberg so plainly, I might have assumed the author was Guy Montag, protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Both are suffering through a takeover by the machinery, technological and bureaucratic; both hold onto a humanistic ideal in the midst of it all. Pedagogy of the Depressed is in some ways precisely the opposite of what its title promises: rather than depressing, it’s a hopeful pushback against the pervasive air of depression and lowered expectations that has overtaken too many of our classrooms, and whose metaphor—if not cause—is Covid-19 and the ubiquity of the Zoom screen. Come for the jeremiad—but stay for the wise encouragement, that this work we do with students still matters. Perhaps matters more than ever. * Kevin Dettmar, W.M. Keck Professor of English and Director, The Humanities Studio, Pomona College, USA *Table of ContentsPrologue: No Place Like Home Introduction: The Depressed 1. We’re All Screens 2. Early Warnings 3. Learning Management 4. Against Sheep 5. Trigger U. 6. Ecophobia 7. Environmental Humanities? 8. Public Humanities? 9. Skimming the Surface 10. Autotheory 11. Beginnings 12. Chance Meeting 13. Theory Today 14. END MEETING FOR ALL 15. Night Writing 16. Less Grading 17. Tenure 18. Exhaustion 19. Well-Rounded 20. Turning Kids into Capital 21. Writing Together 22. Adjusting 23. First-Year Seminar 24. Pitt’s Law 25. Into the Unknown

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Book SynopsisDani Shapiro is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Inheritance. Her other books include the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. In February of 2019, Dani launched an original podcast, Family Secrets, in collaboration with iHeartMedia. An iTunes Top 10 podcast, the series features stories from guests who - like Dani - have uncovered life-altering and long-hidden secrets from their past. Along with teaching writing workshops around the world, Dani has taught at Columbia and New York University, and is the cofounder of Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. Find her at danishapiro.com.

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Book SynopsisHow do the bodies we inhabit affect our relationship with art? How does art affect our relationship to our bodies? T Fleischmann uses Felix Gonzáles-Torres’s artworks—piles of candy, stacks of paper, puzzles—as a path through questions of love and loss, violence and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality. From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity and community.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction Finalist for the 2019 Big Other Book Award in Nonfiction “Both provocatively and evocatively written, the book illuminates the process of becoming.” —Kirkus Reviews “A perceptive and compassionate narrative that beautifully breaks with the limits of genre and gender.” —Publishers Weekly “Fleischmann is not only staking out but literally inventing a territory of their own.” —Los Angeles Times “This is a book about paying attention and sometimes failing to, about showing the ways in which attention, no matter how well focused, can be or feel insufficient. Fleischmann is not wringing their hands but instead leaning into the world, constantly pressing at the corners of language . . . Watchful of its context and position, this book is able to pose increasingly interesting, urgent, and difficult questions. It holds us accountable to the world.” —The Paris Review Daily “Fleischmann excels at the integration of art and memoir . . . their theory of identity suffuses the book on every level, a framework that shows that the ability to exist in an uninscribed space is an exercise in resilience and progress.” —The Nation “In the tradition of the prose magicians W.G. Sebald or Ben Lerner (imagine if those two were somehow non-binary and joyfully slutty). . . . I'm of the belief that Fleischmann is, like many great writers, ahead of their time—I will go so far as to bet that in 10 years, another generation of writers will be pointing to Time as one of the most formative books of our era.” —Torrey Peters "Fleischmann’s path through self-expression, gender fluidity, and self-understanding is well worth our attention." —Literary Hub “A meditation on relationships, place, proximity and distance, belonging, community, gender, politics, the body and, well, love, and all the things that can mean, braided with digressive, descriptive passages about the work of Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres.” —Frieze “The story of the author's own exploration of queerness and identity, this is an all-too-important book at a time when LGBTQIA+ rights are at risk of regression.” —Bustle “Meditative, beautiful, and revolutionary.” —Book Riot "With this book-length essay, T Fleischmann has given us a truly unique work…poetic, powerful, and subversive." —Ms. Magazine “Chicago-based writer T Fleischmann melds personal narrative and art criticism in a poetically titled, genre-defying work. Mining the interactive art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, this book-length essay explores power, desire, gender fluidity and subverting limitations.” —Chicago Tribune “Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity and community.” —The Rumpus “It is this spirit of generosity that makes Fleischmann’s book so luminous—a generosity towards the queer body and its existence, a generosity towards the work of activism, a recognition both of the work that needs to be done and the work that is being done.” —Longreads "The long, sprawling essay bends prose and language to seek both intimacy and the alive body." —The Brooklyn Rail “Expansive. . . . Fleischmann's stories transcend the singular, giving the reader space to reflect on their own body, their own art.” —Columbia Journal “Interspersing frank personal narrative with lyrical, line-broken passages from an unfinished meditation on Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Fleischmann offers up pearls, pills, candies, and miniature portraits of their friends and lovers in acts of generosity that are self-questioning but never self-doubting. Rather, it’s the notion of a unified self itself that splits and spills across these pages with honesty, empathy, and often stunning delicacy.” —Barbara Browning “By turns blunt, confrontational, eloquent, exciting, original, and somewhat indescribable.” —The Gay & Lesbian Review “T Fleischmann's new book explores art and relationships with a perceptive eye and beautiful prose.” —Star Tribune “Fleischmann blends their own experiences with the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres to meditate on loss, violence, love and gender.” —Chicago Tribune “Fleischmann’s book is also generous in its refusal to wrap up or resolve, leaving a wealth of inquiries to be pursued, an endless supply of thoughts feeding thoughts.” —The Arkansas International “What Fleischmann finds here are possibilities for making and living away from the ‘reification of identity’ through González-Torres’s art, searching out what the artist had described as ‘the uninscribed.’” —The Expanded Field “To eat the candy; it’s candy from “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s ‘spill’ of wrapped sweets selected and arranged by the curator of the art museum in which it is displayed. In Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through, this moment is protracted. It becomes both duration, the thing that varies time or stops it, and also a block of sensations that might be received by the reader and discharged by their own capacity to taste it too: ‘The candy was very sweet, and it was melting.’ T Fleischmann has written a book like this, one that is ‘spilled and gestured’ between radical others of many kinds. Is this love? Is this ‘the only chance to make of it an object’? Is this what it’s like to be here at all? To write ‘all words of life.’ And how intimate that is. A form of social privacy. Fleischmann: ‘But maybe that’s okay. Even when imagining takes us away, it still begins with what’s already here.’ Yes. It feels like that. It does.” —Bhanu Kapil Praise for T Fleischmann “How to describe the indescribable might as well be the title of this blurb, if we titled blurbs, since like any good essay, cowgirl, or wandering ghost, T Fleischmann’s Syzygy, Beauty is electric and resists being fenced in. Sometimes solid, sometimes not, like magma or the household magic of corn starch and water, Fleischmann works and perforates the spaces between body and nobody; desire, declaration, and dream; whiskey, sex, and subjectivity; art, ecstasy, and surface tension. Spectral and spectacular, Syzygy, Beauty will haunt you in a way you’ll remember.” —Ander Monson “T Fleischmann’s Syzygy, Beauty shimmers with confidence as it tours the surreal chaos of gender, art, and desire. Its declarative sentences—seductive, abject, caustic, moving, informative, and utterly inventive—herald a new world, one in which we are blessedly ‘here with outfits like strings of light and no future.’ I hail its weirdness, its ‘armpit frankess,’ its indelible portrait of occulted relation, and above all, its impeccable music.” —Maggie Nelson “Let me say first that T Fleischmann’s writing helps us see ourselves. Helping us see clearer what has been muddled in our lives is marvelous, and is the best possible endowment of strength. What better substance? Gluing fur to logic’ as T writes. ‘There is imagination in truth,’ and while T brands this an essay I sense it as poetry because I live through poetry. Whatever you call it, you too will be transfigured. Those who say reading a book changes nothing have been wasting their time reading the wrong things. Do you also know someone who says so? Send them this one.” —CA Conrad, author of The Book of Frank “A complex, tightly wound (and wounded) cri de coeur that is simultaneously accessible and intensely, cryptically personal.” —Star Tribune “In Syzygy, Beauty, T Fleischmann re-imagines the essay, creating a spare little book that reads like a collection of prose poems. Moving between anecdote and observation, fantasy and memory, it traces the story of a relationship—or does it? For Fleischmann, ambiguity is the point, and the more we read, the more the lines here blur. ‘By describing something,’ [they write], ‘we place it at a distance.’” —Los Angeles Times

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Book Synopsis“You know, I actually think about that an awful lot, like, what is our purpose in life? Why am I here? I always think about some little kid being like, ‘What’d you do with your life?’ And me being like, ‘Well, I sold a bunch of floors.’” These are the words of Bjarki Thor Gunnarsson, the young man who manufactures the widest, purest, most metaphorical pine floorboards on the planet. At least, that’s what Matthew Clark believes. Set mostly in rural Maine, Bjarki, Not Bjarki is an expansive book. It is a standard work of journalism, describing with nuance and humanity the people and processes that transform the forest into your floor. It is also a meditation on what it means to know another person and to connect with them, especially in an increasingly polarized America. And it is a ghost story about marriage. It is an inquiry into the limits of language and certainty, a rumination on North American colonization, masculinity, gift cards, crab rangoon, bald eagles, and wood, all of it told in an exciting, energized, and original prose. Bjarki turns out to be someone quite different from whom the author had hoped. A new pine floor buckles. A coyote is shot. A diamond is lost. How do we make sense of the world and of ourselves, especially when the floor beneath us is so unstable; when nothing is quite what we had hoped it would be?Trade Review“Matthew Clark has refinished the floorboards of America with so gently glimmering a new sheen of myth that the smartest among us will immediately invest in the cushiest of slippers for fear of muffling their stories again. Bjarki, Not Bjarki is a masterfully ecstatic, surprising, and humane debut.”—John D’Agata“In Bjarki, Not Bjarki, Matthew Clark is trying to write about everything all at once: love and heartbreak and loss; wood and work and loneliness; friendship and privilege, masculinity and honesty and the sad limitations of both. This is a story that is overflowing with thought and reflection, abundant in self-examination, excessively self-critical, overburdened by its ownership of the past. The result: a lyrical eruption of bittersweet joy, created by a writer who is totally fine in a rapturous state of being lost. Bjarki, Not Bjarki is a lot like the state (Maine) where Clark’s story takes place: full of contradictions and wilderness, always committed to the impossible question of what it means to be a free and honest person in the world. Matthew Clark is a writer who swings for all the fences.”—Jaed Coffin, author, Roughhouse Friday“At the edges of this finely told tale hangs a fog of dark matter (troubles in love, misinformation, guns, insurrection, a jokey racism) while at the center stands a lumber mill in Maine, where men practice a useful craft (as best they can) and befriend one another (ditto). If the fog surrounding them (and us) is ever to lift it will be thanks to voices as attentive, amusing, and generous as that of Matthew Clark. Bjarki, Not Bjarki is the kind of book we need right now.”—Lewis Hyde“Unlike so many of us, Matthew Clark refuses to concede defeat at the hands of our country’s yawning cultural and political divisions. In Bjarki, Not Bjarki, he shows that empathy must be built on actual understanding, and his writing has the self-awareness, the freshness, and the beauty to help us all understand.”—Jeremy Eichler, author, Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance

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Book SynopsisThe Patient Body: A Personal Narrative in Pieces chronicles one man's journey as he attempts to lead a balanced life as a father, husband, friend, and literary citizen during traumatic times. Written as a mosaic of flash' encounters, meditations, memories, and travel pieces, The Patient Body explores the ways the past resides inside the present and the present points to an uncertain future. An abecedary lies at the center of the book, composed for a former self, the twenty-six micro' sections create a dialogue that plays out across the divide created by a devastating car accident that changed everything.

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Book SynopsisThe re in refuge is a collection of linked essays that investigate ideas of refuge, broadly defined, from the intimacies of romance to the promises of the nation state. Written over the span of a decade, the collection shapes experiences and events that interrogate their larger political and social contexts. The emerging European refugee crisis, yet to become headline news, frames the opening essays, with stories of those lost in their passage across the Mediterranean. In 2014 Italy and the United Kingdom ended funding for naval rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, and the influx of refugees into Greece reconfigures some of Athens' neighborhoods. A once abandoned school building becomes a squat where Kalfopoulou and other volunteers engage with refugee communities that include families from Afghanistan, Syria, and Kurdistan. As Kalfopoulou notes in The Parts Don't Add Up a visual essay, Embedded in the word refugee is refuge, suggesting that the vectors of shelter have as much to do with what one carries of culture and place as they are about a tangible home.

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Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated, celebratory anthology exploring sadness—and the transformative power of tears.When was the last time you cried? Was it because you were sad? Or happy? Overwhelmed, or frustrated? Maybe from relief or from pride? Was it in public or in private? Did you feel better afterwards, or worse? The reasons that we cry—and the circumstances in which we shed a tear—are often surprising and beautiful. Sad Happens is a collective, multi-faceted archive of tears that captures the complexity and variety of these circumstances. We hear from Mike Birbiglia on the role that grief and pain have in comedy; Jia Tolentino on how motherhood made her cry in both hormonal joy and fervent rage; and Hanif Abdurraqib on the intimacy of crying on planes. We hear from Phoebe Bridgers on poignant moments of departure and JP Brammer on the strange disappointments of success; Matt Berninger on becoming a crybaby in his adulthood and Hua Hsu on crying during a moment of public uncertainty. We also hear from everyday people in a range of professions: an actor on the tips she learned from drag queens about preserving a full face of makeup while crying; a zookeeper on mourning the animals who have died during her tenure; a bartender on crying in the walk-in; and a TV critic on the shows that have moved her. Brimming with humanity, this anthology is confirmation that sad happens—but so does joy, love, a sense of community, and a host of other emotions. By turns moving and affirming, Sad Happens is an emotional balm and visual delight.

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Book SynopsisThe first-ever collection of essays from across Elizabeth Hardwick''s illustrious writing career, including works not seen in print for decades.A New York Times Notable Book of 2017Elizabeth Hardwick wrote during the golden age of the American literary essay. For Hardwick, the essay was an imaginative endeavor, a serious form, criticism worthy of the literature in question. In the essays collected here she covers civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, describes places where she lived and locations she visited, and writes about the foundations of American literature—Melville, James, Wharton—and the changes in American fiction, though her reading is wide and international. She contemplates writers’ lives—women writers, rebels, Americans abroad—and the literary afterlife of biographies, letters, and diaries. Selected and with an introduction by Darryl Pinckney, the Collected Essays gathers more than fifty essays for a fifty-year retrospective of Hardwick’s work from 1953 to 2003. “For Hardwick,” writes Pinckney, “the poetry and novels of America hold the nation’s history.” Here is an exhilarating chronicle of that history.

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Book SynopsisAn issue exploring the metropolis through fiction, essays, art, and interviews spanning generations, continents, and languages. For over a decade, A Public Space has published an award-winning literary and arts magazine that seeks out and supports writers working apart from the mainstreamculturally, aesthetically, economically. From debuting writers to celebrating work in translation, to bringing attention to overlooked writing from previous generations, "every issue of A Public Space juxtaposes finely wrought, carefully edited pieces, putting them in dynamic conversation with one another."

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Book SynopsisA new edition of one of only two photobooks that Guibert published in his life, reissued here for the first timeThis photobook by Hervé Guibert, The Only Face, is not a novel in the traditional sense but is nonetheless filled with characters, settings and mystery. It starts with bodiestheir faces either eclipsed or out of framebefore unleashing a bravura sequence of portraits: friends, lovers, family and Guibert himself. As the book approaches its finale, his subjects are obscured and then disappear completely, leaving behind the objects they touched, until even those vanish, leaving only light.Most of the photographs in The Only Face were taken on Guibert's European and American travels, but their settings are, with few exceptions, small private interiors. The effect is an inwardness that communicates Guibert's deep affinity with his subjects.The Only Face, originally published in Paris in 1984, is the second and final photobook Guibert published in his lifetime (preceded by the photo-novel Suzanne and Louise, also reissued in English by Magic Hour Press). This new edition presents Guibert's photographs in their original sequence, with his titles and introductory text translated by Christine Pichini and a new cover by the artist Marc Hundley.French writer and photographer Hervé Guibert (195591) was the author of 25 books, beginning with Propaganda Death (1977), a fictional memoir in the tradition of Georges Bataille, Jean Genet and the Marquis de Sade. His best-selling novel To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (1990) was inspired by his long friendship with Michel Foucault and the two men's experiences living with AIDS, which tragically ended Guibert's life at the age of 36.

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Book SynopsisThe Idler is a literary and philosophical lifestyle periodical edited by Tom Hodgkinson. This instalment features an interview with Jarvis Cocker about his memoir Good Pop Bad Pop, a guide to mudlarking, Arthur Smith in praise of teachers, Kate Rew on the history of outdoor swimming, Stewart Lee's music picks and moreTrade Review"The Idler is better than drugs" - Emma Thompson; "The Idler's appeal and relevance seem to grow by the day" - Michael Palin; "The Idler offers me the chance to learn about everything that really matters" - Dominic West; "The Idler's absurd, apparently useless or bizarre concerns - Latin, ukuleles, handwriting - have over the years given me a deep joy bordering on the religious" - Sally Philips

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Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated celebration of the biology, culture, art, and eating of oysters—a perfect gift for the gourmets or the aesthete in your life.Consuming oysters constitutes a sensual experience rather than fulfillment of a basic need. In that sense, oysters now have more in common with art than with food.Portrait of an Oyster delves beyond the shucked shell to reveal the rich and surprising world of the oyster and the artists, philosophers, explorers, and chefs the mollusk has inspired across the centuries. Illustrated with full-color paintings, vintage advertisements, line drawings, and archival photographs, Portrait of an Oyster shares intriguing insights into the biology and cultivation of oysters as the author embarks on an expedition across Europe and North America to taste some of the world’s best.Did you know that oysters shift their gender several times over the course of their lifetimes? They have one muscle that serves to keep their two shells clamped firmly shut, and a heart and basic circulatory system largely dependent on seawater—although they have no brain or known nervous system.In the French region of Marennes-Oléron—where much of the technology of modern oysters farming was pioneered—oysters are still considered among the finest in the world. Like champagne, oysters from this region are protected by geographic distinction laws, with some even getting initials lasered into their shells, to preserve their prestige. Portrait of an Oyster travels across France, Europe, and North America, sampling some of the best oysters and restaurants in the world, including in the UK and Copenhagen, and then Boston, New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco.This book’s stunning features include: Full-color paintings, vintage advertisements, and archival photographs. Intriguing insights into the biology, reproduction, and cultivation of oysters. Sumptuous travelogs to renowned oyster restaurants and oyster farms. Unique backmatter: A glorious guide to global oyster varieties, with drawings and descriptions of each specimen.

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Book SynopsisThe series, and inaugural volume, uniquely celebrates what is by now a substantial corpus of academic work on a field of practice that has been thriving for several decades -- in spite of the many challenges that music educators in Ireland continue to face. Its various chapters engage with arts and education policies, with international developments and comparative educational systems and, crucially, with the concerns of teachers, students, musicians, schools, higher education institutions, music development agencies and broader communities of practice.

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Book SynopsisAlive with insight, wit and Dyer's characteristic irreverence, this collection of essays offers a guide around the cultural maze, mapping a route through the worlds of literature, art, photography and music. Besides exploring what it is that makes great art great, Working the Room ventures into more personal territory with extensive autobiographical pieces - 'On Being an Only Child', 'Sacked' and 'Reader's Block', among other gems. Dyer's breadth of vision and generosity of spirit combine to form a manual for ways of being in - and seeing - the world today.Trade ReviewShrewd, funny, original . . . very good company on the page. -- Andrew Motion * * Guardian * *A national treasure. -- Zadie SmithA seductively straightforward writer . . . like Orwell. Dyer writes engrossingly on everything from love of doughnuts to his sequestered working class childhood in Swindon. -- Will Self * * Financial Times * *One of my favourite of all contemporary writers. I love his sense of the absurd, his pessimism mixed with robust good cheer, his beautifully crafted sentences, his jokes and his intelligence. -- Alain de BottonLanguid, elegant, brilliantly conversational. -- Tim Adams * * Observer * *A true original - one of those rare voices in contemporary literature that never ceases to surprise, disturb and delight . . . Dyer is a must-read for our confused and perplexing times. * * William Boyd * *Dyer is becoming a character just as arch and seductive as that professional self-effacer from the previous generation, Alan Bennett. * * Observer * *Insightful, humorous, and . . . exemplifies his passion, wit and ability. -- Rob Sharp * * Independent * *An irresistibly funny storyteller, [Dyer] is adept at fiction, essay and reportage, but happiest when twisting all three into something entirely his own. * * New Yorker * *It's this ability to develop such passions that gives the literary flaneur his curious edge, a gift for turning both acute spasms of obsession and long-rumbling preoccupations into writing, a highly strung take on the journalistic necessity of burrowing into a subject like a worm in an apple, then moving on to a new fruit -- Victoria Segal * * Guardian * *Dyer's musings provide an intensely personal view of the world * * The Times * *It's this ability to develop such passions that gives the literary flaneur his curious edge, a gift for turning both acute spasms of obsession and long-rumbling preoccupations into writing, a highly strung take on the journalistic necessity of burrowing into a subject like a worm in an apple, then moving on to a new fruit. * * Guardian * *Essays and journalism, often very funny, from the author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. * * Sunday Telegraph * *Dyer's musings provide an intensely personal view of the world. * * Times * *

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Book SynopsisA glimpse of post-war France through the eyes and words of 14 (mostly) expatriate journalists including Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A.J. Liebling, S.N. Behrman, Luc Sante, Joseph Mitchell, and Lillian Ross; plus, portraits of their editors William Shawn and New Yorker founder Harold Ross. Together: they invented modern magazine journalism. Includes an introductory interview by Susan Morrison with Anderson about transforming fact into a fiction and the creation of his homage to these exceptional reporters.Trade ReviewFor anyone hoping to truly appreciate The French Dispatch, An Editor's Burial should be required reading... another of Wes Anderson's impeccably curated confections, designed to make you laugh, cry, and smile wryly * Frenchly *Table of ContentsContents The Pilot Light 7 A conversation between Wes Anderson and Susan Morrison The Years with Ross 25 JAMES THURBER Here at The New Yorker 42 BRENDAN GILL The Other Paris 54 LUC SANTE Thirty-two Rats from Casablanca 81 JOSEPH MITCHELL Mr. Hulot 103 LILLIAN ROSS Remembering Mr. Shawn 107 VED MEHTA The Days of Duveen 129 S.M. BEHRMAN Art Talker 166 CALVIN TOMKINS The Events in May: A Paris Notebook Part I 170 MAVIS GALLANT Dearest Edith 229 JANET FLANNER Equal in Paris 239 JAMES BALDWIN Memoirs of a Feeder in France: A Good Appetite 261 A.J. LIEBLING Memoirs of a Feeder in France: Just Enough Money 285 A.J. LIEBLING Wolcott Gibbs 307 e.b. white Harold Ross: A Recollection 310 S.M. BEHRMAN H.W. Ross 318 e.b. white Letters from The New Yorker Archives 323 Acknowledgments 351

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Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERRelive the delusional fever-dream of the modern era.'Thank f*ck for Marina Hyde: the most lethal, vital, screamingly funny truth-teller of our time.'PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE'The most brilliantly funny columnist of our time.'GARY LINEKER'It's a scientific FACT: Marina Hyde is Britain's funniest writer.'CAITLIN MORANNo other writer is more suited to chronicling the absurd times in which we live.In What Just Happened?! Marina Hyde slashes her way through the hellscape of post-referendum politics, where the chaos never stops. Clamber aboard as we relive every inspirational moment of magic, from David Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson. Marvel at the sights, from Trumpian WTF-ery to celebrity twattery. And boggle at the cast of characters: Hollywood sex offenders, populists, sporting heroes (and villains), dastardly dukes, media barons, movie stars, reality TV monsters, billionaires, police officers, various princes and princesses, wicked advisers, philanthropists, fauxlanthropists, telly chefs, and (naturally) Gwyneth Paltrow. It's the full state banquet of crazy - and you're most cordially invited.Drawn from her spectacularly funny Guardian columns, What Just Happened?! is a welcome blast of humour and sanity in a world where reality has become stranger than fiction.'A joyous rallying voice in British journalism.'GRAYSON PERRY'An infinite number of gag-writers, working all day in a gag factory, couldn't come up with any of the perfectly-formed one-liners that populate Marina Hyde's hilarious writing . . . But behind the wit lurks real anger, argument, exasperation and intelligence. Her writing is more than a gentle poke in the ribs: it's a well-wrought and deftly aimed smash in the teeth.'ARMANDO IANNUCCI

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Book SynopsisBeginning with the election of Donald Trump ("The Loneliest Man in the World") and expanding back and forth into American history, surveillance, violence against the individual, the denormalizing of misogyny and the rehumanizing of public space. The ultimate focus of the book is climate and feminist activism, bringing Solnit's trademark deep analysis to bear on a range of contemporary crises. And again, and spectacularly, she shows us how to hope.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING CRITIC AND ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF NEGROLAND 'This is one of the most imaginative - and therefore moving - memoirs I have ever read' - Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments Margo Jefferson boldly and brilliantly fuses cultural analysis and memoir to probe race, class, family and art. Taking in the jazz and blues icons whom Jefferson idolised as a child in the 1950s, ideas of what the female body could be - as incarnated by trailblazing Black dancers and athletes - Harriet Beecher Stowe's Topsy reimagined in the artworks of Kara Walker, white supremacy in the novels of Willa Cather, and more, this breathtakingly eloquent account is both a critique and a vindication of the constructed self. 'Margo Jefferson's Constructing a Nervous System is as electric as its title suggests. It takes vital risks, tosses away rungs of the ladder as it climbs, and offers an indispensable, rollicking account of the enchantments, pleasures, costs, and complexities of "imagin[ing] and interpret[ing] what had not imagined you' - Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts 'If you want to know who we are and where we've been, read Margo Jefferson' - Edmund White, author of A Previous Life 'This is a moving portrait of the life of a brilliant African American woman's mind. Margo Jefferson is so real, her sensibility so literary, her learning such a joy. The gifts of reading her are many' - Darryl Pinckney, author of Sold and GoneTrade ReviewElectric [Jefferson] takes vital risks, tosses away rungs of the ladder as it climbs, and offers an indispensable, rollicking account of the enchantments, pleasures, costs, and complexities of "imagin[ing] and interpret[ing] what had not imagined you -- Maggie Nelson * author of The Argonauts *Margo Jefferson has created a startling and digressive form of auto-analysis... an intimate view of the aesthetic and political landscape of American culture and the secrets, longing, withholding and disavowal necessary to imagine oneself inside it and ward off its damage -- Saidiya Hartman * author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments *She knows everything and has felt it all deeply. If you want to know who we are and where we've been, read Margo Jefferson -- Edmund White * author of A Previous Life *Margo Jefferson is one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism. Her latest Constructing a Nervous System is especially alive is both spiky and supple; jagged -- Cathy Park Hong * New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings *This is one of the most imaginative-and therefore moving-memoirs I have ever read -- Vivian Gornick * author of Fierce Attachments *Jefferson is as precise and sensitive as ever, nonpareil in her scope and ability to synthesize the circus of traditions, arcs, and performances that make up a life -- Most Anticipated Books of 2022 * Vulture *This is a moving portrait of the life of a brilliant African American woman's mind. Margo Jefferson is so real, her sensibility so literary, her learning such a joy. The gifts of reading her are many -- Darryl Pickney * author of Sold and Gone *A tour-de-force of personal narrative -- Keziah Weir * Vanity Fair *Margo Jefferson is the rare memoirist who is always daring the reader to keep up... It is impossible not to be stirred by her odes to fellow black American strivers of excellence * Observer *Constructing a Nervous System compresses memoir and cultural criticism into one slim, explosive volume, and in doing so the Pulitzer Prize-winning author makes both forms new. Hers is a wry, intimate portrayal of a passionate and intellectual woman coming to maturity... Jefferson has that rare ability to make her reader see things anew. -- Margie Orford * Spectator *Part autobiography, part cultural criticism, [Margo Jefferson] reminds us that the rules for how we structure memory, and how we tell our stories, are not immutable. -- Enuma Okoro * Financial Times *Lithe and always surprising... [Jefferson] paints a remarkable portrait of herself as a singular kind of performer * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisWe cannot understand the phenomenon of remembering without invoking its opposite, forgetting. Taking his cue from Beckett - 'only he who forgets remembers' - Josipovici uncovers a profound cultural shift from societies that celebrated ritual remembrance at fixed times and places, to our own Western world where the lack of such mechanisms leads to a fear of forgetting, to what Nietzsche diagnosed as an unhealthy sleeplessness that infects every aspect of our culture. Moving from the fear of Alzheimer's to invocations of 'Remember the Holocaust' and 'Remember Kosovo' by unscrupulous demagogues, from the burial rituals of rural societies to the Berlin and Vienna Holocaust Memorials, from eighteenth-century disquiet about the role of tombs and inscriptions to the late poems of Wallace Stevens, Josipovici has produced, in characteristic style, a small book with a very big punch. Gabriel Josipovici's novel The Cemetery in Barnes (2018) was shortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

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Book SynopsisA brilliantly wide-ranging essay collection from the author of My Struggle, spanning literature, philosophy, art and how our daily and creative lives intertwine.In the Land of the Cyclops is Karl Ove Knausgaard's first collection of essays to be published in English, and these brilliant and wide-ranging pieces meditate on themes familiar from his groundbreaking fiction.Here, Knausgaard discusses Madame Bovary, the Northern Lights, Ingmar Bergman, and the work of an array of writers and visual artists, including Knut Hamsun, Michel Houellebecq, Anselm Kiefer and Cindy Sherman.These essays beautifully capture Knausgaard's ability to mediate between the deeply personal and the universal, demonstrating his trademark self-scrutiny and his deep longing to authentically see, understand, and experience the world.'Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive' New York TimesTrade ReviewA profound (and profoundly eclectic) collection of essays * Daily Telegraph, *Summer Reads of 2021* *A modern Roland Barthes... Knausgaard has a gift for stopping the reader in their tracks with an unexpected, casual profundity -- Steven Poole * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisRead the definitive essay collection from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Adversary, dubbed 'France's greatest writer of non-fiction' (New York Times)'The most exciting living writer' Karl Ove KnausgaardOver the course of his career, Emmanuel Carrère has reinvented non-fiction writing. In a search for truth in all its guises, he dispenses with the rules of genre. For him, no form is out of reach: theology, historiography, reportage and memoir - among many others - are fused under the pressure of an inimitable combination of passion, curiosity and intellect that has made Carrère one of our most distinctive and important literary voices today.97,196 Words introduces Carrère's shorter work to an English-language audience. Featuring more than thirty extraordinary texts written over an illustrious twenty-five-year period of Carrère's creative life, the book shows a remarkable mind at work. Spanning continents, histories, and personal relationships, 97,196 Words considers the divides between truth, reality and our shared humanity, exploring remarkable events and eccentric lives, including Carrère's own.* A New York Times Notable Book *Trade ReviewA superb collection of essays by Emmanuel Carrère, one of the best storytellers around… When Carrère writes a story, he knows how to stir up powerful and conflicting emotions in his reader, which is one of the reasons he’s so good… It’s the best book I’ve read for ages. -- William Leith * Evening Standard *Books of the Year* *The most exciting living writer. -- Karl Ove KnausgaardEmmanuel Carrère is known for the way he bends and breaks genres… [he] is the most celebrated writer of high-end nonfiction in France… the core of Mr Carrère's talent is precisely that he brings readers into sympathetic contact with others, powerful and powerless, insiders and outsiders… It is a masterful illusion. * Economist *Impossible not to fall in love with…Carrere is regarded as a superstar writer… it is a joy to be reminded of all the wonderful things that [creative non-fiction] can do. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian *Emmanuel Carrère, a man fascinated by crime, eroticism and the oddities of human behaviour, is arguably France’s most original living writer of non-fiction… he creates reportage, that, with its insight and humanity, is closer to literature than journalism. -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisTom Wolfe's debut collection of essays - a brilliant, form-bending dive into the future of America as it careened through the 1960s In 1965, Tom Wolfe dropped like a bomb onto the American literary scene with his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, an incandescent panorama of American counter-culture, its dances, bouffant hairdos, customised cars and rock concerts. Capturing the energy of the age in its portraits of Phil Spector, Cassius Clay, Las Vegas and the Nanny Mafia – as well as asking, why do doormen hate Volkswagens? – Wolfe’s flamboyant essay collection remains one of the great, revolutionary landmarks of modern non-fiction.'Journalism, it is said, is the first draft of history. Nobody exemplifies the dictum better than Wolfe, the cultural observer and social critic par excellence' Daily TelegraphTrade ReviewYou only had to look at him… or read such books as The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff to know that Tom Wolfe was like no other -- John Pye * The Scotsman *Journalism, it is said, is the first draft of history. Nobody exemplifies the dictum better than Wolfe, the cultural observer and social critic par excellence -- Mick Brown * Daily Telegraph *Effortlessly, elegantly, Tom Wolfe bestrode both fiction and non-fiction… a style at once objective, subjective, and hallucinatory -- Andy Martin * Independent *[Tom Wolfe’s] gleeful use of punctuation and italics, along with entertaining asides and neologisms that often quickly cemented themselves into the English lexicon, helped Wolfe stand out from other journalists * Guardian *[Wolfe] made literature fun and bores don’t like fun -- Freddy Gray * The Catholic Herald *

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Book Synopsis‘It is in very truth a sunny, misty, cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform Day...’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Sotheby, 27 September 1802This anthology of poems and prose ranges from literary weather – Homer’s winds, Ovid’s flood – to scientific reportage, whether Pliny on the eruption of Vesuvius or Victorian theories of the death of the sun. It includes imaginary as well as actual responses to what is transitory, and reactions both formal and fleeting – weather rhymes, journals and jottings, diaries and letters – to the drama unfolding above our heads.The entries narrate the weather of a single capricious day, from dawn, through rain, volcanic ash, nuclear dust, snow, light, fog, noon, eclipse, hurricane, flood, dusk, night and back to dawn again. Rather than drawing attention to authors and titles, entries appear bareheaded, exposed to each other’s elements, as a medley of voices. Rather than adding to our image of nature as a suffering solid, the anthology attends to patterns, events and forces: seasonal and endless, invisible, ephemeral, sudden, catastrophic. And by assembling a chorus of responses (ancient and modern, East and West) to air’s manifold appearances, Gigantic Cinema offers a new perspective on what is the oldest conversation of all.Trade ReviewA deliciously playful reminder that the greatest show on the planet is what happens in the skies and all around us. -- Rishi Dastidar * Guardian *Gigantic Cinema is a brilliant anthology...in which finite mortals struggle to express the mysteries of invisible forces that tangle the senses. -- Joanna Kavenna * Literary Review *Superb. -- Hamish Robinson * Oldie *The weather comes at you, page after page, with an almighty and unstoppable roar of terrifying magnificence -- Michael Glover * Tablet *Gigantic Cinema is a brilliant anthology of disturbances and interruptions, in which finite mortals struggle to express the mysteries of invisible forces that tangle the sense. -- Joanna Kavenna * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisThe probing essays collected in American Originality scrutinise the terms we use to think about recent American poetry, its antecedents (not just Whitman and Dickinson but Ovid, Rilke, Thomas Mann, Keats) and its future, questioning how we distinguish between work that is unique and work that is original, carefully delineating the allure of both 'shared traditions' and 'the cult of illogic'. Attentive always to risk and danger, Louise Glück illuminates how the poet at work moves between panic and gratitude, agony and resolution. Essays on specific writers and on the larger themes of American literature introduce the terms by which she reads and celebrates ten younger poets whose work she has advocated. Studded with brilliant insights into her own practice and the work of her contemporaries, this is an essential book for any interested reader of new poetry.Trade Review'Gluck speaks to our time in a voice that is onstage, but heard from the wings' - Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisThrough a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How can one remain a dispassionate thinker when involved in the cut and thrust of politics? And, in an age of horror and crisis, what does it mean to be a committed writer?Shatz interrogates the major figures of twentieth and twenty-first century thought and finds within their lives and work the roots of our present intellectual and geopolitical situation. Charting the role of the committed intellectual through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre on the Algerian War and Edward Said's lifelong solidarity with the Palestinian people, to Fouad Ajami's role as the "native informant" for pro-intervention cause in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, alongside philosophers and critics Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Claude Lévi-Strauss and the novelists Michel Houllebecq and Richard Wright, each struggled to reconcile their writing and their politics, their thought and their commitments. Writers and Missionaries is an erudite and incisive work of intellectual elucidation and biographical enquiry that demands that we interrogate anew the relation of thought and action in the struggle for a more just world.Trade ReviewWhat strikes the reader immediately is Adam Shatz's range, that of his subjects and that of his learning. It tells us that these essays come from a very free and strong mind. His independence of spirit is part of the intellectual tradition of the wonderfully written work that beguiles us into contemplation, further thought. We follow his questions into the past and return with better understandings of the present. A gifted soul for our times. -- Darryl PinckneyAstounding. The range, strength and intricate connectedness of these essays by Adam Shatz offers great intellectual nourishment for the reader, and his patient engagement with the work and life of the authors he follows to illustrate his ideas is staggering. What pleasure it was to read his thoughtful essays when they were first published, and what a great boost and singular satisfaction to read them altogether in this superb book. -- Raja Shehadeh, author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian MemoirFor over two decades, Adam Shatz has re-animated the old Anglo-American model of the man of letters, bringing a cosmopolitan flair and moral urgency to de-politicised realms of literary criticism and intellectual journalism. His refusal of conventional pieties is consistently bracing; these selected essays brilliantly showcase his broad and extraordinarily cohesive sensibility. -- Pankaj MishraThis carefully-orchestrated compendium of Adam Shatz's essays makes a gem of a book. A keen ear and attentive eye have infused his eloquent writing with humane insight and a refined political sensibility. -- Paul GilroyThe art of literary criticism lies in combining, in a condensed form, the beauty of style and the sharpness of thought. The essays gathered in Writers and Missionaries are a model of the genre. They accomplish the difficult task of balancing political commitment with critical distance, a passion for texts with an analytical gaze. They sketch an intellectual landscape made of literary, philosophical, and filmic productions through the prism of colonialism and race, war and antisemitism, emigration and exile, and humanism and structuralism. Adam Shatz's approach to French culture as a crossroads is unconventional and refreshing. This is the art of essay at its best, and a true pleasure for readers. -- Enzo Traverso, Author of Revolution: An Intellectual HistoryReminiscent of an interview, Shatz sets up his opening question, sits back, and simply lets his subjects talk. At its heart [Writers and Missionaries] is an extended exercise in listening. -- George Adams * Oxford Review of Books *The book is infused with life-to read it is almost an antidote to the cynicism that indeed does develop from too many book reviews obviously written as favors, or strategic plays on the part of the reviewer. -- Ann Manov * Los Angeles Review of Books *Indispensable for anyone trying to think seriously about the ethical demands of writing and journalism against the backdrop of dark and even catastrophic times. -- Joshua Leifer * Jewish Currents *These probing essays on writers and artists-such as Richard Wright, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, and Kamel Daoud-reflect Adam Shatz's abiding interests: the intellectual life of the Francophone and the Arab worlds, leftist politics, and the nature of political art. * New Yorker *A sustained and unflinching exploration of the role and formation of the intellectual in our society. -- Isabel Stevens * Sight & Sound *Lucid and stimulating. -- Thomas Lordan * Irish Times *A brilliant collection of political essays by one of our sharpest literary journalists. -- Nathan Thrall * Observer *

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Book SynopsisA powerful critique of the racial myths that shape our worldDrawing on a rich tapestry of historical analysis, literary criticism, and cultural theory, Hazel V. Carby interrogates our racial fictions, which have been constructed, maintained, and weaponized across centuries to justify systems of domination and exploitation.Traversing temporalities and global boundaries, Racial Fictions reveals the inter-connectedness of America’s domestic racial struggles and international colonial ambitions. Carby challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the persistence of white supremacy, the violence embedded in historical memory, and the silencing of marginalized voices. The result is a profound exploration of the intricate and enduring legacies of race, imperialism, and violence in the formation of modern identities and nation-states.

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Book SynopsisIn this short essay, Hill sets out a clear, concise argument for public access to parks, and argues for the rights we now take for granted. Our Common Land is a forgotten part of our cultural history, and demonstrates exactly why the founders of the National Trust thought it was so important to preserve ancient buildings and estates for the public.

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Book SynopsisWritings on people and places, theater and film, in a portfolio of essays and photographs informing Wes Anderson's film Asteroid City. Featuring 8 newly commissioned pieces alongside more than 20 classic essays from the likes of François Truffaut and Jonas Mekas, DO NOT DETONATE explores key influences on celebrated director Wes Anderson's new film Asteroid City. Together they form a detailed, captivating portrait of the mid-century film world and the enduring myths of the American West. Contents: A Conversation Between Wes Anderson and Jake Perlin A Life excerpt - Elia Kazan The Celluloid Brassière - Andy Logan Rainy Day - Lillian Ross The Outskirts: Other Men's Women - Gina Telaroli The Petrified Forest - Jorge Luis Borges Ace in the Hole: Noir in Broad Daylight - Molly Haskell What Makes a Sad Heart Sing: Some Came Running - Michael Koresky One False Start, Never Wear the Same Dress Twice - Durga Chew-Bose Maigret at the Coroner's excerpt - Georges Simenon Sunbelt Noir: Desert Fury - Imogen Sara Smith The Voyage Down and Out: Inferno - Kent Jones Bad Day Near The River's Edge - Nicolas Saada Watching Fail Safe at the End of the World - K. Austin Collins Black Desert, White Desert - Serge Toubiana Marilyn Monroe and the Loveless World - Jonas Mekas Beyond the Stars - Jeremy Bernstein Coming: Nashville - Pauline Kael Coming Around the Mountain: Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Matt Zoller Seitz Selections from Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary - Bob Balaban Introduction to Small Change: A Film Novel - François Truffaut By The Time I Get to Phoenix - Thora Siemsen My Guy - Hilton Als Wild to the Wild - Sam Shepard

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Book SynopsisTom Paine is celebrated for the part he played in both the American and French Revolutions. Though an Englishman by birth, he reacted violently against the political order of eighteenth-century England and in favour of radical reform. So well thought of was he outside Great Britain that he became a distinguished public figure in both France and the United States. RIGHTS OF MAN and COMMON SENSE are the two short books in which he elaborates his political and social theories in vivid, simple prose which can still be read with pleasure and excitement today. These are among the foundling texts of the radical tradition in America and Western Europe.

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Book SynopsisDescribing his collection of Essays as ‘a book consubstantial with its author’, Montaigne identified both the power and the charm of a work which introduces us to one of the most attractive figures in European literature. A humanist, a sceptic, an acute observer of himself and others, he reflects the great themes of existence through the prism of his own self-consciousness. Apparent in every line he wrote, his virtues of tolerance, moderation and disinterested inquiry amount to an undeclared manifesto for the Enlightenment, whose prophet he is. This complete edition of his works supplements the Essays with travel diaries and letters, thereby completing the portrait of a true Renaissance man.

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Book SynopsisIn 1765, Mirza Sheikh I'tesamuddin, a Bengali munchi employed by the East India Company, travelled on a mission to Britain to seek protection for the Mogul Emperor Shah Alam II. The mission was aborted by the greed and duplicity of Robert Clive, but it resulted in this remarkable account of the Mirza's travels in Britain and Europe.Written in Persian, 'Shigurf Nama-e-Vilayet' or 'Wonderful Tales about Europe' is an entertaining, unique and culturally valuable document. The Mirza was in no sense a colonial subject, and whilst he wrote frankly about what he felt accounted for India's decline and Europe's contemporary ascendance, he was a highly educated, culturally self-confident observer with a sharp and quizzical curiosity about the alien cultures he encountered. His accounts of visits to the theatre, the circus, freakshows, the 'mardrassah of Oxford', Scotland, of the racial alarms his presence sometimes provoked and of his impressions of British moral codes (including the 'filthy habits of the firinghees') make for fascinating reading.There is, too, embedded in the narrative, a touching and cautionary account of the Mirza's relationship with Captain Swinton, with whom he travelled from India and who was his regular companion in Britain. Swinton was evidently kindly and generous, but by the end of the Mirza's stay, the friendship has broken down, chiefly over Swinton's refusal to take the Mirza's Islamic faith and cultural identity seriously.Kaiser Haq's scholarly, modern translation is the first to appear in English since the original 'abridged and flawed translation' which appeared in 1827. The Wonders of Vilayet is an important document, a salutary addition to Western accounts of the 'Otherness' of India, orientalism in reverse.Kaiser Haq was born in what later became Bangladesh, for the creation of which he fought as an officer in the war of liberation. He is a poet and translator and is currently Professor of English at Dhaka University.

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Book SynopsisI try to write something every day even though I am not writing poetry, just to get myself in touch with language.Edwin MorganEdwin Morgan (19202010) is one of the giants of modern literature. Scotland's national poet from 2004 to his death, throughout his long life he produced an astonishing variety of work, from the playful to the profound.Edwin Morgan: In Touch With Language presents previously uncollected prose journalism, book and theatre reviews, scholarly essays and lectures, drama and radio scripts, forewords and afterwords all carefully moulded to the needs of differing audiences. Morgan's writing fizzes with clarity and verve: the topics range from Gilgamesh to Ginsberg, from cybernetics to sexualities, from international literatures to the changing face of his home city of Glasgow. Everyone will find surprises and delights in this new collection.

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Book SynopsisBaby-boomers, gen-X, millennials, zoomers: the dividing lines among generations in literary culture have become stark to the point of parody. Granta 166 tests the limits of each generation''s given definition in popular culture against the reality of its most sharply observed fiction.Stories by Andrew O''Hagan, Brandon Taylor, Nico Walker and Lillian Fishman fill an issue that captures the change in values, aesthetic emphasis and technological experience among different age cohorts, all the while questioning the legitimacy of the generational conceit. Non-fiction includes meditations on the short history of the idea of ''a generation'', as well as on the relative absence of youth revolts in our time, and the shadowy rule of the old - gerontocracy - in societies across the globe.

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Book SynopsisWales is a nation of contradictions. It boasts incredible natural resources and crushing poverty; fierce patriotism and a stark north/south divide; an energy surplus, and some of the highest bills in the UK. It also has a famously rugby-mad culture - but its football team are lighting up international tournaments. So what''s going on? And how might Wales look in decades to come? Rhys Thomas hails from Laugharne - the village on which, it is rumoured, Dylan Thomas based Under Milk Wood''s ''Llareggub'' (read it backwards). In this affectionate investigation into his home country - via Welsh geography, food, culture and sport - he aims for the heart of its contrasts. In doing so, Thomas builds a mosaic-like image of how Wales looks today - and how it might look in the future.

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Book SynopsisIn a society battered by economic, political, cultural and ecological collapse, where do we place our trust, now that it is more vital than ever for our survival? How has that trust - in our laws, our media, our governments - been lost, and how can it be won back? Examining the police, the rule of law, artificial intelligence, the 21st century city and social media, Ros Taylor imagines what life might be like in years to come if trust continues to erode. Have conspiracy theories permanently damaged our society? Will technological advances, which require more and more of our human selves, ultimately be rejected by future generations? And in a world fast approaching irreversible levels of ecological damage, how can we trust the custodians of these institutions to do the right thing - even as humanity faces catastrophe?

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Book SynopsisOne of the English language's great humourists provides a masterful account of how humour worksand of how it very often doesn't.

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Book SynopsisBaron d'Holbach's 1776 Essay on the Art of Crawling is a delicious satire on the sycophancy and self-abasement rife in the courts of Europe.

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