Essays Life

In 16 brilliantly observed true stories, Sam Harris emerges as a natural humorist in league with David Sedaris, Chelsea Handler, Carrie Fisher, and Steve Martin, but with a voice uniquely his own. Praised by the Chicago Sun-Times for his "manic, witty commentary", and with a storytelling talent the New York Times calls " New Yorker - worthy," he puts a comedic spin on full-disclosure episodes from his own colorful life. What better place to find painfully funny material than in growing up gay, gifted, and ambitious in the heart of the Bible belt?

From columnist and critic Alana Massey, a collection of essays examining the intersection of the personal with pop culture through the lives of pivotal female figures - from Sylvia Plath to Britney Spears - in the spirit of Chuck Klosterman, with the heart of a true fan.

Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends - and that's before she even puts on a bra. For the past 10 years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences.

The Jerusalem Syndrome is a genuine psychological phenomenon that often strikes visitors to the Holy Land - the delusion that they are suddenly direct vessels for the voice of God. Marc Maron seems to have a distinctly American version of the Jerusalem Syndrome, which has led him on a lifelong quest for religious significance and revelation in the most unlikely of places.

"Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A love story." Virginia Woolf wrote that in order to be a writer, a woman needs a room of one's own. Now, in Real Estate, acclaimed author Deborah Levy concludes her groundbreaking trilogy of living autobiographies with an exhilarating, boldly intimate meditation on home and the specters that haunt it.

"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised, "you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays.

Modern evangelicals have gained money, power, and influence, and it has been like giving whiskey to a two-year-old. The need of the hour is theological, not political. The arena is the pulpit and the table, not the legislative chamber. Before we are equipped to proclaim His lordship to the inhabitants of all the earth, we must live as though we believed it in the Church.

Slip into the extraordinary world of Mr. Joe, where words transcend the page, weaving together memories, dreams, and the relentless pursuit of understanding life’s deepest mysteries. This book is more than just a collection of stories; it’s a journey through time, identity, and the very essence of what it means to be human. With a blend of flash fiction, lyric essays, character sketches, and monologues, Joseph Santiago explores the intricate dance between reality and imagination, leaving readers with a sense of connection that resonates long after the last page is turned. Whether ...

As a Pennsylvania Game Warden for more than three decades, Wasserman investigated thousands of game law violations and arrested many violent career poachers. But another big part of his job was in the public relations and education field where he penned a weekly newspaper column entitled It’s a Wild Life. Hence, the title of this audiobook, which contains twenty-six of his most notable stories selected from more than seven hundred published over a fifteen-year period.

One of the most valuable spaces for an artist is the inner life—the sacred place where, outside of the constraints of time and space, meaning is extracted from raw experience and fashioned into art. In this timely new essay, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo discusses the work writers do as they sift through experience and work to cultivate rich interior lives. For authors, this often involves performing triage, a constant assessment of events that helps determine what’s useful for a story and potentially enduring.

In the Adirondacks, short carries are portages between waterways, and this book is a collection of short essays about wilderness, outdoor adventures, natural history and small town life - all of which connect with each other through the author's voice and deep sense of place.

Bad Dogs Have More Fun is an unforgettable collection of more that 75 newspaper columns by John Grogan, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Marley & Me. Combining humor, wit, poignancy and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in.

What songs have made up your life's soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre - from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones - can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This book contains a series of engaging yet controversial essays by Samuel Butler, the famous Luddite who argued back in the 1860s that machines would one day take over the world and should be destroyed lest civilization as we know it is annihilated. He was a contrarian thinker who claims to have not liked books (though he wrote many) and disdained many aspects of Darwinian evolution, even while he agreed with key points.

Life After Schizophrenia breaks down the theory, or thought form schizophrenia into many different levels starting with the opening essay which is titled, “Schizophrenia: Real or Imagined.” The science known as ontology which delineates the bases of existence is a device used to further scrutinize schizophrenia from the oblique angle of those diagnosed, or as put in the book misdiagnosed as per misconstrued symptoms which are spiritual or religious in origin. Individuals many times are taken against their will to mental health offices and even institutionalized for deviant thoughts ...

This collection of humorous short essays combines affection for the timeless values of community life in an English village with a nostalgia for aspects that are quietly slipping away. Easy to dip into, this light-hearted volume provides entertaining reading for anyone interested in modern English rural community life, wherever they live. Written between 1991 and 2015, most of these essays first appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish News, the community newspaper for Hawkesbury Upton, the Cotswold village in which Debbie Young has lived for the last 25 years. Very active in village life, she is ...

Even though early adulthood doesn’t look just like Sex and the City or Thirteen Going on Thirty the way Eli thought it would, with Does Anyone Else Feel This Way? Eli shows you that you’re not the only one who misses the days when they could swing by the dining hall or just wants to call their mom to make it all go away. With a look at her own misadventures and hard-won life lessons, Eli shares the journey she’s been on to find herself as an adult, and the twists and turns she’s taken while navigating her own quarter-life crisis.

Written by a marine scientist (and winner of French eloquence competitions), this work of narrative nonfiction blends Bill François’ personal story with that of sea creatures to create an original and exciting work. In poetic prose, he describes his unlikely journey from being a Parisian child, afraid of the water and crippled by self-consciousness, to an eloquent and self-assured young man with a passion for the ocean and all who inhabit it.

Stunning essays, like from a stun-gun. Essays that will make you laugh, weep, cringe, gasp, anger but mostly surprise. 55 essays including How To Have A Happy Death, Wisdom That Is Timeless, Athleticism Is Superior To Capitalism, Etiquette Before Righteousness.

Jessica McCann has woven together a collection of personal essays and writing tips that offer a unique glimpse into her writing journey and process. She is an award-winning historical novelist and has worked as a professional freelance writer and editor for magazines, universities, corporations, and nonprofits for more than 30 years. In Words, McCann shares her passion for books as well as research that shows how reading improves our lives. With a philosophy that is equally pragmatic and optimistic, Words will appeal to readers and writers alike.