Essay Essays

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her biting wit to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress.

The fifth edition of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America continues a 25-year tradition of collating Warren Buffett's philosophy in a historic collaboration between Mr. Buffett and Prof. Lawrence Cunningham. As the book Buffett autographs most, its popularity and longevity attest to the widespread appetite for this unique compilation of Mr. Buffett’s thoughts that is at once comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible.

Over the past few years, Brianna Wiest has gained renown for her deeply moving, philosophical writing. This new compilation of her published work features pieces on why you should pursue purpose over passion, embrace negative thinking, see the wisdom in daily routine, and become aware of the cognitive biases that are creating the way you see your life. Some of these pieces have never been seen; others have been read by millions of people around the world. Regardless, each will leave you thinking: This idea changed my life.

With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.

Jimmy Lee Hickam grew up along Red Dog Road, a dead-end strip of gravel and mud buried deep in the bowels of Appalachian Ohio. It is the poorest road, in the poorest county, in the poorest region of the state. To make things worse, the name Hickam is synonymous with trouble. Jimmy Lee hails from a heathen mix of thieves, moonshiners, drunkards, and general anti-socials that for decades have clung to both the hardscrabble hills and the iron bars of every jail cell in the region. This life, Jimmy Lee believes, is his destiny, someday working with his drunkard father at the sawmill, or sitting next to his arsonist brother in the penitentiary.

To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a leader in the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He is best known for his political philosophy and ideological thoughts on the moral worth of the individual and his work greatly influenced many of the great thinkers of his time, including Henry David Thoreau.

A modern classic, The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America is the book Buffett autographs most and likes best. Its popularity and longevity over three decades attest to the widespread appetite for this definitive statement of Mr. Buffett’s thoughts that’s uniquely comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible. New and experienced listeners alike will gain an invaluable informal education by perusing this classic arrangement of Mr. Buffett's best writings.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Albans, Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor of England, was an immensely learned, clever and ambitious man, with considerable political influence. However, he was also a philosopher with a wide interest in science, medicine and the classification of knowledge. Throughout his life he wrote a series of essays - following the manner set particularly by Montaigne, though extending back to Aristotle and others - the first 10 of which appeared in 1597.

“A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment, one seems to be listening to Montaigne himself - the freshness of his ideas, the unexpected choice of words. Frame has kept everything.” (Andre Maurois, The New York Times Book Review)

Bar candidates are required to memorize massive quantities of law, frequently written by some of the the world's best authors—the justices of the United States Supreme Court. Mining the rule of law from complex decisions is no easy feat. Enter this audiobook, a concise, all-encompassing reference to the rules required for passing the bar exam. Sorted by essay topic, this book balances the listing all required elements and keeping it simple, with one goal in mind—compiling all of the necessary rules in a format that is easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to recall.

Since her canonical 2017 essay “On Liking Women,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Andrea Long Chu has established herself as a public intellectual straight out of the 1960s. With devastating wit and polemical clarity, she defies the imperative to leave politics out of art, instead modeling how the left might brave the culture wars without throwing in with the cynics and doomsayers. Authority brings together Chu’s critical work across a wide range of media—novels, television, theater, video games—as well as an acclaimed tetralogy of literary essays first published in n+1.

John Locke and his works - particularly An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - are regularly and rightly presented as foundations for the Age of Enlightenment. His primary epistemological message - that the mind at birth is a blank sheet waiting to be filled by the experiences of the senses - complemented his primary political message: that human beings are free and equal and have the right to envision, create and direct the governments that rule them and the societies within which they live.

In his latest book, Essays, best-selling author Thibaut Meurisse shares his insights on a variety of topics such as success, happiness, money, personal development and the meaning of life. He raises questions, shares frameworks, and offers tools to help readers figure out how to make the most of their life.

A deeply moving testimony and celebration of how to embrace life. No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.

Among the men and women prominent in the public life of early 20th-century America there are but few whose names are mentioned as often as that of Emma Goldman. Yet the real Emma Goldman is almost quite unknown. Here are powerful, penetrating, prophetic essays on direct action, the role of minorities, prison reform, puritan hypocrisy, and violence.

Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.

“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

Ross Gay’s essays have been called “exquisite” (Tracy K. Smith), “imperative” (the New York Times Book Review), and “brilliant” (Ada Limón). Now, in this new collection of genre-defying pieces, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight.

From the fleeting beauty of a moth's final moments to reflections on the nature of art, identity, and the human experience, Woolf’s writing invites listeners into her world of introspection, subtle observations, and profound insights. In this collection, Woolf navigates themes of life, death, creativity, and the inner workings of the mind with an unparalleled sensitivity that remains timeless.