The renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner offers a dazzling new account of aesthetics grounded in female agency. Through a series of linked meditations on canonical and contemporary literature and art, she casts women's taste as the engine of liberal...

Facing threats like climate change and nuclear warfare, science fiction authors have conjured apocalyptic scenarios of human extinction. Can such gloomy fates help us make sense of our contemporary crises? How important is the survival of our species if...

Marcel Proust once wrote, “There is no longer anybody, not even myself, since I cannot leave my bed, who will go along the Rue du Repos to visit the little Jewish cemetery where my grandfather, following a custom that he never understood, went for so...

Classical stories about women who wield power, from the Amazons to Dido to CleopatraA Penguin ClassicThere is no other anthology that brings together similar stories of ancient women in power. These women threaten male power by stepping into the roles...

"Reinterprets two of Sophocles' Theban plays, Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone. . . . the alternating structure proves powerful."--The New Yorker "A passionate and gripping account of a famously dysfunctional family. Haynes balances a fresh take on the...

From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, “a strikingly fresh cultural critic” (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between.Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist...

A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss—and attempting to reshape the narrative of her life—from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire OshetskyMargaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world...

“Tim O'Brien is the one American author whose works I look forward to the most. His new novel’s ironic depiction of a post-Iraq war, mid-COVID, and mid-Trump world is piercing and razor-sharp.” —HARUKI MURAKAMIAn American Master returns: the author of...

A PEOPLE Magazine Must-Read Book for Fall 2023 | An Esquire Best Book of Fall 2023 | A Guardian Biggest New Book of 2023 | A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2023An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from...

In the boiling heat of summer, a broken remote control for an air conditioner threatens life as we know it in this reality-bending, time-slipping sequel to The Tatami Galaxy.During a scorching August in Kyoto, our protagonist and his worst friend, Ozu,...

A masterfully updated edition of The F-Word which renders a comprehensive portrait of English's most notorious and colorful word.No word has generated more uses, more creative euphemisms, and more strong opinions than fuck. Jesse Sheidlower's historical...

Nine tales of early Irish literature beautifully retold in a modern, evocative styleA mysterious woman appears nightly at the bedside of a prince and sings to him until he falls sick with love for her. A determined hero tracks his beloved through several...

A beautifully illustrated guide to over seventy-five important journeys in world literature, spanning more than thirty countries and twenty-five hundred yearsFrom Homer’s Odyssey, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Cervantes’s Don Quixote to Melville’s...

When Did The Age Of Distraction Begin? It Might Seem Like A New Problem, A Symptom Of Our Digital Addictions, But Distraction Was Already A Source Of Deep Concern In American Culture Two Hundred Years Ago. As The Industrial Market Economy Emerged,...

A new account of Shakespearean tragedy as a response to life in an uncertain worldIn Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, Rhodri Lewis offers a powerfully original reassessment of tragedy as Shakespeare wrote it—of what drew him toward tragic drama, what makes his...

An entrancing new telling of ancient Greek myths“This book is a triumph! . . . [A] magnificent retelling of the Greek myths.”—Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series“Move over, Edith Hamilton! Sarah Iles Johnston has...

A century-long history of immigrant incarceration in the United StatesToday, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains an average of 37,000 migrants each night. To do so, they rely on, and pay for, the use of hundreds of local jails. But this...

On the 100th anniversary of T. S. Eliot's modernist masterpiece, a rich cultural history of The Waste Land's creation, explosive impact, and enduring influence When T. S. Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922, it put the thirty-four-year-old author on a...

A guide to writing with the reader in mindIf you want people to read your writing, it has to be readable. In Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, Leonard Cassuto offers academic writers a direct, practical prescription for writing that will be read and...