The Fran Lebowitz Reader brings together in one volume, with a new preface, two bestsellers, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies, by an "important humorist in the classic tradition" (The New York Times Book Review) who is "the natural successor to Dorothy Parker" (British Vogue). In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life?its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions....

"From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts--always adroit, often acerbic--on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation. Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she's in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice -- sharp, witty, as compassionate as it...

"Enthralling essays on the expatriate experience in Paris and shrewd literary criticism by one of the twentieth century's finest writers. Mavis Gallant is revered as one of the finest short story writers of her generation, but she was also an astute observer and formidable reporter. This selection of Gallant's essays and reviews written between 1968 and 1985 begins with her impressions of the Parisian student uprising in May 1968-originally published...

Contains "a new nonfiction collection of letters, interviews, and magazine articles spanning Conroy's long literary career, supplemented by touching pieces from the beloved author's many friends. A Lowcountry Heart collects some of Conroy's most charming pieces of short nonfiction, many of them addressed directly to his readers with his habitual greeting, "Hey, Out There." Ranging across diverse subjects such as favorite recent reads, the challenge...

"As far as the education of children is concerned," states Natalia Ginzburg in this collection of her finest and best-known short essays, "I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but a love of one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but...

"Eileen Chang is one of the most celebrated and influential modern Chinese novelists and cultural critics of the twentieth century. First published in 1945, and just as beloved as her fiction in the Chinese-speaking world, Written on Water collects Chang's reflections on art, literature, war, urban culture, and her own life as a writer and woman, set amidst the sights and sounds of wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong. In a style at once meditative and...

"From the author of The Queen of the Night, an essay collection exploring how we form our identities in life, in politics, and in art"--

"In these essays and poems, Hogan depicts her own intense relationships with animals as an example to the rest of us"--

"Mostly what God does is love you. If we could believe this, really believe this, how different would we be? How different would our lives be? How different would our world be? If you ever struggle with your connection to God (or whether you even feel connected to a faith at all!), you're not alone. Especially in our modern world, with its relentless, never-ending news cycle, we can all grapple with such questions. Do we do that alone, with despair...

A forgotten century marks the years between the Ming dynasty's (1368–1644) turbulent founding and its sixteenth-century age of exploration and economic transformation. In this period of social stability, retired scholar-official Lu Rong chronicled his observations of Chinese society in Miscellaneous Records from the Bean Garden (Shuyuan zaji). Openly expressing his admirations and frustrations, Lu provides a window into the quotidian

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