American Literary Cultures

An addictive, unpredictable, darkly hilarious collection of stories from Danny McBride—the beloved creator and star of The Righteous Gemstones and Eastbound & Down. “These McBride men more than drink their own Kool-Aid, they swig it to survive. On fever quests to save face and make their...

A cult classic and Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, this sharp, insightful novel by New Yorker contributor Han Ong explores racial and social hierarchy, personal identity, and alienation. William Paulinha—a resourceful gay Filipino sex worker barely getting by in New York—is determined to...

In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace...

The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli arrive in America at the end of the 1960s, shortly after their arranged marriage in Calcutta, in order for Ashoke to finish his engineering degree at MIT...

Now a mini-series on National Geographic! A Washington Post Best Book of the Year & a New York Times Notable Book From the Pulitzer Prize–­­winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain” comes the New York Times bestselling epic about the demise of the world’s forests...

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, ‘Culture [...] is a study of perfection’.

From the award-winning author of Hula, a dazzling saga about the generations of women tasked with protecting the history and place that made them. A young woman lies comatose in a hospital, watched by her estranged grandmother. Mystery surrounds the woman’s fall—did she jump off the cliff...

“Both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . . A book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains.” — The Paris Review A special 50th anniversary edition of the magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning...

From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a suspenseful and moving saga about family secrets, hidden trauma, and the overriding power of forgiveness, set during the war and in present-day Việt Nam. In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay...

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.

This unflinching and powerful novel tells the "deeply felt and fiercely written" story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe to America (New York Times Book Review). Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends...

A radiant, exquisitely told portrait of a young woman growing up between cultures, in search of her future self Before you are anything, you are a daughter. At first, you are a child at home in your mother’s belly: a beloved daughter, a vision of the future. But who will you become? At the Dol...

“Strikingly dramatic, yet simple and unrestrained . . . an unusual and intensely interesting book richly packed with strange information.” —New York Times Book Review Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather...

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize A New York Times bestseller A Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year A New York Times Notable Book “Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel...

Long-listed for the 2014 National Book Award in fiction Winner of the 2015 Alex Award for adult books with special appeal for young adults Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, John Darnielle's audacious and gripping debut novel Wolf in White Van is a marvel of storytelling brio and...

Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer of The Removed Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented...

New York Times Bestseller ""Inspired. . . . Kundera's most brilliantly imagined novel. . . . A book that entrances, beguiles and charms us from first page to last."" — Cleveland Plain Dealer Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a...

The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby—"The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading...

“A narrative of great power. Warm with friendly personality and pulsating with . . . profound eloquence and religious fervor.” —New York Times In this 1939 novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black...

From National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree Jenny Tinghui Zhang, a novel about a pop idol and his superfan, whose stories shockingly collide “Narrator Katharine Chin’s outstanding performance will have listeners weeping as they hear Zhang’s debut novel, based on actual events.”...