Essayist Christopher Hitchens ruminates on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men, the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard, the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell, the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad, the enduring relevance of Karl Marx, and how politics justifies itself by culture--and how the latter prompts the former.

Presents essays illustrating existentialist thought.

In a collection of essays, the Rooster gets married at an uproarious wedding, an estrangement occurs over a rubber vs. plastic debate, and the author gets the upper hand during a slumber party game of strip poker.

A collection of both previously unpublished works and classic essays includes discussions of recent cultural and political events, social networking, libraries, and the failure to address global warming "Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel, White Teeth, almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also as a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes...

Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers...

" 'In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.' So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which beloved poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness, as a young child and as an adult, to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of...

A collection of essays that focus on family, community, the natural world, and travel.

"In these nine essays, [the author] provides insight into his life as a writer, teacher, friend, and reader"--Amazon.com.

Presents Ralph Waldo Emerson's collections "Essays: First Series" and "Essays: Second Series," which include such works as "Self-Reliance," "Experience," and "Circles."

Spanning twenty years of the author's work, this collection of fifteen previously unpublished essays includes a look at the effect that television has had on the new generation of writers and a dissection of the movie "Terminator 2."