Passionate, strong-minded nonfiction from the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections was the best-loved and most-written-about novel of 2001. Nearly every in-depth review of it discussed what became known as "The Harper's Essay," Franzen's controversial 1996 investigation of the fate of the American novel. This essay is reprinted for the first time in How to be Alone, along with the personal essays...

A collection of essays in which the author searches for hope in nature and family in a world scarred by poverty and violence.

"A monumental, canon-defining anthology of four centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith. Many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves--sometimes critically--to American values, but even in those that don't, one can detect a subtext about being American. The Founding Fathers and early American writers self-consciously struggle to establish a recognizable...

Gathers essays from various sources that discuss social change, political power, the environment, natural disasters, interpersonal relations, the author's personal experiences throughout the world, the arts, and other topics.

"New York Times-bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was a writer with a poet's economy of style and a trencherman's appetites. Best known for fiction and poetry, Harrison was also a prolific nonfiction writer, with columns running in Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and work in Outside, Field & Stream, and others. Written with Harrison's trademark ribald humor, compassion, and full-throated zest for life, The Search for the Genuine is a collection...

"From the universally acclaimed, best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: ten pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Here are six pieces written in 1968 from the "Points West" Saturday Evening Post column Joan Didion shared from 1964 to 1969 with her husband, John Gregory Dunne about: American newspapers; a session with Gamblers Anonymous;...

"An essential book for all Grace Paley fans Grace Paley is best known for her inimitable short stories, but she was also an enormously talented essayist and poet. A Grace Paley Reader collects the best of Paley's writing, showcasing her breadth of work and her extraordinary insight and empathy. With an introduction by George Saunders and an afterword by the writer's daughter, Nora Paley, A Grace Paley Reader is sure to become an instant classic"--...

Presents a collection of mid-twentieth century essays on a wide range of subjects, written by some of America's best writers, critics, sociologists, theologians, historians, activists, theorists, humorists, poets, and novelists.