In the months following his wife's death, Mr. Preemby, a retired laundryman, becomes convinced that he is the incarnation of Sargon, the ancient king of Sumeria, returned to save a world upturned by World War I. Trying to make sense of Mr. Preemby is his...

'A unique and thrilling insight into the brilliant mind of Anne Lister' Sally Wainwright, creator of Gentleman JackFemale Fortune is the book which inspired Sally Wainwright to write Gentleman Jack, now a major drama series for the BBC and HBO.Lesbian...

An intimate look at one of rock's brightest stars and his legendary backing band Before he was the swaggering, stadium-packing megastar, Bruce Springsteen was a brooding introvert, desperate to strike a balance between his nuanced songwriting and the...

An outrageous, clever and very funny novel of sex, lies, art and what defines a life.

Allen Speight argues that behind Hegel's extraordinary appeal to literature in the Phenomenology of Spirit lies a philosophical project concerned with understanding human agency in the modern world. It shows that Hegel looked to three literary...

Beneath the waters of Abukir Bay, at the edge of the Nile Delta, lie the submerged remains of the ancient Egyptian cities Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, which sank over 1,000 years ago but were dramatically rediscovered in the 20th century and brought to...

A global history of the 1850s, the ambitious, explosive, and tumultuous decade that revolutionized the modern world

This beautifully illustrated book documents the history, preservation, and present uses of Havana’s most important buildings and urban spaces. Interpreting the present in light of the past, eleven renowned architects, historians, scholars,...

"Racy scholarship does the Grizzly Bear here with theoretical rigor." —William Lhamon, author of Raising Cain Everybody’s Doin’ It is the eye-opening story of popular music’s seventy-year rise in the brothels, dance halls, and dives of New York City. It...

The legendary photographs of David Douglas Duncan explore the broad range of human nature, from the most quiet notes of life to the crashing crescendos of war. Duncan began taking pictures for newspapers in the mid-1930s, then joined the Marines, where...

A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 • Named a Best Book of the Year by Slate and NPR • Longlisted for the Orwell PrizeOne of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisisHow can we explain the origins...

A preeminent thinker redefines the meaning of city life and charts a way forwardBuilding and Dwelling is the definitive statement on cities by the renowned public intellectual Richard Sennett. In this sweeping work, he traces the anguished relation...

Of Plan B, an interim volume that included several of the poems in Maggot, Robert McCrum recently said in the London Observer that "Paul Muldoon, who has done so much to reimagine the poet's task, has surpassed himself with his latest collection." In his...

In haunting ways, this gorgeous novel prefigures Irène Némirovsky’s masterpiece Suite Française. Set in France between 1910 and 1940 and first published in France in 1947, five years after the author’s death, All Our Worldly Goods is a gripping story of...

A best-selling author and world-renowned bibliophile meditates on his vast personal library and champions the vital role of all libraries. "The author brings a fresh hopefulness to the enterprise of books and reading. Vintage Manguel--a pleasure for...

A multifaceted response to issues concerning personal privacy and government power by writers, artists, and others The filmmaker, artist, and journalist Laura Poitras has explored the themes of mass surveillance, "war on terror," drone...

A major publishing event: the third volume of Michel Leiris's renowned autobiography, now available in English for the first time in a brilliant translation by Lydia Davis A beloved and versatile author and ethnographer, French intellectual Michel...

A provocative, highly engaging essay on the art of pretending on the stage, on screen, and in daily life Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respected and insightful writers on movies and theater, answers this question with intelligence...

The rise of heterosexual culture and the resistance it met from feudal lords, church fathers, and the medical profession.Heterosexuality is celebrated—in film and television, in pop songs and opera, in literature and on greeting cards—and at the same...

The Kamasutra, composed in the third century CE, is the world's most famous textbook of erotic love. There is nothing remotely like it even today, and for its time it was astonishingly sophisticated. Yet it is all but ignored as a serious work in its...