"Divine Might is a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin, including: Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father's brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), the goddess of war and provider of wise counsel; Aphrodite, born of the foam (and sperm released from a Titan's castrated testicles), the most beautiful of all the...

The essays in this inspiring collection analyze the craft of writing and the art of living and loving    
Jane Rule shares her insights into the creative process, sexual fidelity, feminist politics, and the transformative power of love.      Part I—“On Writing”—dispenses advice (writing is “a craft that has to be practiced”); offers observations (“The creative process...

Fabulously entertaining and filled with the intriguing trivia of life, Irons in the Fire is another impeccably crafted collection of seven essays by John McPhee. His peerless writing-punctuated with a sharp sense of humor and fascinating detail-has earned him legions of fans across the country. Whether he's riding with a cattle brand inspector in wild and wide-open eastern Nevada, or following Plymouth Rock through its various sizes, shapes and resting...

"[This book] is a collaborative study of literary tone, a notoriously challenging and slippery topic for criticism. Both granular and global, infusing a text with feeling, tone is so difficult to pin down that responses to it often take the vague form of "I know it when I see it." In Tone, a cooperative authorial voice under the name of the Committee to Investigate Atmosphere begins from the premise that tone is relational, belonging to shared experience...

With an afterword by Linda M. Morra

Discovered in her papers in 2008, Jane Rule's autobiography is a rich and culturally significant document that follows the first twenty-one years of her life: the complexities of her relationships with family, friends, and early lovers, and how her sensibilities were fashioned by mentors or impeded by the socio-cultural practices and educational ­politics of the day.

In writing about

...

"This critical edition of the epic 1968 Malian novel explores its enduring literary power and the plagiarism scandal that devastated its author, the first African winner of France's prestigious Renaudot Prize. An engrossing, tragic tale spanning the thirteenth to the twentieth century, Bound to Violence recounts the fate of the imaginary empire of Nakem and the dynasty of the Saïfs who reign there as devious masters. While the novel was initially...

"We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human. Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes...

"Calvin Trillin has reported serious pieces across America for The New Yorker, covered the civil rights movement in the South for Time, and written comic verse for The Nation. But one of his favorite subjects over the years—a superb fit for his unique combination of reportage and humor—has been his own professional environment: the American press. In The Lede, Trillin gathers his incisive, often hilarious writing on reporting, reporters, and their...

"In her writing for Harper's, the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and elsewhere, Lauren Oyler has emerged as one of the most trenchant and influential critics of her generation, a talent whose judgments on works of literature--whether celebratory or scarily harsh--have become notorious. But what is the significance of being a critic and consumer of media in today's fraught environment? How do we understand ourselves, and each other, as space...

"Christian Wiman, a thinker "at the very source of theology" (Marilynne Robinson), braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work"-- Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer--perhaps none--do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet and the author of My Bright Abyss, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying...