An acclaimed cultural historian takes readers on an intellectual thrill ride through the kaleidoscopic story of futurology, a surprisingly powerful force in the modern world.For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests and prophets,...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDWINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAROne of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best...

A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.If there is one feature that defines the human condition, it is language: written, spoken, signed, understood, and misunderstood, in all its...

One of Los Angeles Times' Most Anticipated Books of 2025 One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 "Sharp, elegant and eye-opening . . . a crucial toolbox for understanding both Joan Didion and Hollywood." --Emily Nussbaum

John Guillory considers close reading within the larger history of reading and writing as cultural techniques.At a time of debate about the future of “English” as a discipline and the fundamental methods of literary study, few terms appear more...

An education in a portmanteau: George Steiner at The New Yorker collects his best work from his more than 150 pieces for the magazine. Between 1967 and 1997, George Steiner wrote more than 130 pieces on a great range of topics for The New Yorker, making...

One of The Guardian’s Best Books of the Year: Personal writings by the anonymous author who became a literary phenomenon with My Brilliant Friend.The writer known as Elena Ferrante has taken pains to hide her identity in the hope that readers would focus...

"This collaboration--posthumous in McAlmon's case--has proved amazingly successful. It gives us pictures of two lives--and many surrounding lives--from different angles, as if they had been taken with a stereoscopic camera. Thereby it gives us an...

"[A] splendid and subtle memoir in essays" —The New York Times Book ReviewHaving lost eight friends in ten years, Cooley retreats to a tiny medieval village in Italy with her husband. There, in a rural paradise where bumblebees nest in the ancient...

The first general nonfiction title in thirty years from a giant of American letters, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive collection of Jim Harrison's essays and journalism—some never before publishedNew York Times–bestselling author Jim...

Kirkus (STARRED review)"Churchwell... has written an excellent book... she’s earned the right to play on [Fitzgerald's] court. Prodigious research and fierce affection illumine every remarkable page.”The autumn of 1922 found F. Scott Fitzgerald at the...

Young Eliot: From St. Louis to “The Waste Land” was hailed as “exceptional” and “assiduous” (The New York Times). Robert Crawford’s meticulous, incisive scholarship continues in Eliot After “The Waste Land”, an invaluable record of the revolutionary...

A groundbreaking exploration of one of America’s most iconic and misunderstood authorsEdgar Allan Poe: A Life is the most comprehensive critical biography of Poe yet produced, exploring his fascinating life, his extraordinary work, and the vital...

Over the course of a thirty-eight-year friendship, painter Beauford Delaney and writer James Baldwin shared their private lives and shaped one another’s artistic values. Speculative Light brings together scholars, critics, and artists who analyze the...

A pithy and brilliant introduction to Susan Sontag’s writing on women, gathering early essays on aging, equality, beauty, sexuality, and fascismSusan Sontag was one of the most formidable, original, and influential thinkers of the last century. “The most...