Literary Criticism bestsellers

A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness and the struggle to be human

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY... Read more »

From the author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, the New York Times Bestseller and Best Book of the Year at NPR, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, and many more

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

“Pink is my favorite color. I used to say... Read more »

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire
 
Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia... Read more »

At last, a new audio edition of the book many havecalled James Baldwin’s most influential work!

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, whenBaldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and blackthought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowlygained... Read more »

National Best Seller 

From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”

M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes... Read more »

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir—delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor.

Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash... Read more »

The first novel-writing guide from the best-selling Save the Cat! story-structure series, which reveals the 15 essential plot points needed to make any novel a success.

Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriting methodology to the world of novel writing.... Read more »

Lacing cultural criticism, Victorian literature, and storytelling together, "TOO MUCH spills over: with intellect, with sparkling prose, and with the brainy arguments of Vorona Cote, who posits that women are all, in some way or another, still susceptible to being called too much." (Esmé Weijun Wang)

A weeping woman is a monster. So too is a fat... Read more »

Delve into the romanticism and imagination of Jane Austen in this collection of Austen’s greatest novels. Covering the span of her career, these five novels are just as charming now as they were two centuries ago in their first publications.

Sense and Sensibility – Austen’s first novel tells the story of the Dashwood ladies – Elinor, Marianne,... Read more »

For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented... Read more »

A brilliant, idiosyncratic collection of introductions and afterwords (plus some liner notes) by New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon—“one of contemporary literature’s most gifted prose stylists” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times).

In Bookends, Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon offers a... Read more »

This is the perfect study guide to the complete works of Shakespeare, covering everything from the romantic comedy of Romeo and Juliet to the tragedy Macbeth, alongside his Elizabethan history plays, sonnets, and other poems.

With detailed plot summaries and an in-depth analysis of the major characters and themes, this is a brilliant, innovative... Read more »

What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers?

Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected... Read more »

On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand? In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy?the... Read more »

“Finally, the biography that Sylvia Plath deserves . . . A spectacular achievement.” —Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

The highly anticipated new biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and... Read more »

African-American folklore was Zora Neale Hurston's first love. Collected in the late 1920's Every Tongue Got to Confess, from the celebrated author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, is published here for the first time, beautifully performed by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.

Hilarious, bittersweet, and often saucy, these folk-tales provide a verdant... Read more »

Mary Oliver has published twenty-one volumes of poetry and six books of prose in the span of five decades, but she rarely performs her poetry in live readings. With At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver gives her audience what they've longed to hear: the poet's voice reading her own work. In this audio, she has recorded forty of her favorite poems,... Read more »

From public radio This American Life contributor and self-described “history nerd” Sarah Vowell comes a collection of humorous and personal essays investigating American history, pop culture and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell travels through the American past and in doing so ponders a... Read more »

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 well as her impassioned discussions of Sartre,... Read more »

*PLEASE NOTE: This concise summary is unofficial and is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the original book's publisher or author.*
Short on time? Or maybe you’ve already read the book, but need a refresh on the most important takeaways. In a quick, easy listen, you can take the main principles from Super Attractor: Methods for... Read more »

In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, statistician and journalist Ben Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have... Read more »

Armas, gérmenes y acero, Premio Pulitzer 1997, cuestiona la prepotente visión occidental del progreso humano y nos ayuda a comprender cómo el mundo moderno y sus desigualdades han llegado a ser como son.

Hace 13.000 años la evolución de las distintas sociedades humanas comenzó a tomar rumbos diferentes. La temprana domesticación de animales ... Read more »

"A must-read for this era.”—Jake Tapper, CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent 

An insightful, urgent, and perennially relevant handbook that lays out in common sense language how the United States Constitution works, and how its protections are eroding before our eyes—essential reading for anyone who wants to understand and parse the... Read more »

Now in audiobook for the first time ever! Read by Simon Jones, the original “Arthur Dent,” and written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, Don’t Panic is the definitive chronicle of all things Hitchhiker!

First published in 1986 and updated several times since, Don’t Panic is in an in-depth exploration of Douglas Adams’s cultural... Read more »

From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Brother, I'm Dying, a collection of vividly imagined stories about community, family, and love. Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and... Read more »

Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children's publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked... Read more »

A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark

The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?

In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson... Read more »

The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic uses the books of the Trump era to argue that our response to this presidency reflects the same failures of imagination that made it possible.

As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his... Read more »

An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature.

Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came... Read more »

This classic novel focuses on a female protagonist named Edna Pontellier who rebels against the conventional roles of an upper-class conservative woman. Set in New Orleans, the novel weaves a rich tapestry of southern life and culture through the lens of a woman who feels trapped in a cage of wealth and social norms. This book is a must read... Read more »

With color, irony, and sensitivity, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that is the writer's life. As it probes and exposes, examines and analyzes,The Writing Lifeoffers deeper insight into one of the most mysterious of professions.

A gregarious recluse, Dillard has passed many days, weeks, and... Read more »

Bestselling poet, writer, and Instagram sensation Nikita Gill returns with a collection of poetry and prose retelling the legends of the Goddesses, both great and small, in their own words.

With lyrical prose and striking verse, beloved poet Nikita Gill (Fierce Fairytales, Wild Embers) uses the history of Ancient Greece and beyond to explore and... Read more »

The revered teacher and bestselling author reflects on the power, importance, and joy of a life dedicated to reading books in this delightful collection drawn from his wide body of writings.

More than fifty years after his death, revered intellectual and teacher C. S. Lewis continues to speak to readers, thanks not only to his intellectual... Read more »

Following the success of At Blackwater Pond, this second audio reccording from bestselling poet Mary Oliver contains a selection of thirty-seven previously published poems and four new, read by the poet in her steady, magnetic voice. Oliver recites from the full range of her poetry—from her classic nature writing to her verses for her... Read more »

A deeply felt celebration of a classic novel--and a reflection on the ways our favorite books can shape and heal us.

Our favorite books keep us company, give us hope, and help us find meaning in a chaotic world. In this fresh and relatable work, atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan blends memoir and personal growth as she grapples with the notions of... Read more »

An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson. A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from... Read more »

Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. It is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature.
Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main... Read more »

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the fiftieth anniversary of King's assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political... Read more »

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?

David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000... Read more »

From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays

Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to... Read more »

Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Library Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, and Newsday
A Kirkus Best Memoir of 2017
Shortlisted for the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize

From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The Lost: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading--and reliving--Homer's... Read more »

A gripping narrative history of Spain’s most brilliant and troubled literary family—a tale about the making of art, myth, and legacy—set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War and beyond.

In this absorbing and atmospheric historical narrative, journalist Aaron Shulman takes us deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Spanish Civil War... Read more »