National Network for Equitable Library Service

In this essay collection, Henighan ranges across continents, centuries and linguistic traditions to examine how literary culture and our perception of history are changing as the world grows smaller. He weaves together daring literary criticism with front-line reporting on events such as the end of the Cold War in Poland and African reactions to the G8 Summit.

What would Obama's 2004 campaign have looked like if it unfolded in an African nation? What does it mean to be an African writer today? How do writers and poets from all continents teach us to cross the sert'o, the savannah, the barren places where we're forced to walk within ourselves?

In the game of bocce, no matter how intensely you study the world's surface, there is always a chance an unseen pebble will knock your ball in an unexpected direction. In these essays, poet, antiquarian bookseller, and celebrated travel writer Marius Kociejowski chronicles serendipitous encounters with authors, manuscripts, and eccentrics, in which 'the curious workings of fate' and 'art's unbidden swerve' intervene to shift the course of fortune.

The essays and reportage in 'How to Breathe Underwater' offer a panoramic overview of this age of radical change from the online gambling boom in the Caribbean to Cyberjaya, the Malaysian government's attempt to build its own Silicon Valley; from video game design to digital-age tabloid journalism to the artistry of The Simpsons; and from the fate of the Great Barrier Reef to Cuba's economic limbo after the fall of the Soviet empire.

In the tradition of E.M. Forster, John Gardner, and James Wood, Douglas Glover has produced a book on writing at once erudite, anecdotal, instructive, and amusing. Attack of the Copula Spiders represents the accumulated wisdom of a remarkable literary career: novelist, short story writer, essayist, teacher and mentor, Glover has for decades been asking the vital questions. How does the way we read influence the way we write? What do craft books fail to teach aspiring writers about theme, about plot and subplot, about constructing point of view?

When fifty-three percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and ninety-four percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump's America' Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward. Nasty Women features essays by Rebecca Solnit, Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Hepola, Nicole Chung, Katha Pollitt, Jill Filipovic, Samantha Irby, Randa Jarrar, Sarah Hollenbeck, Meredith Talusan, and Sarah Jaffe, among others.

Internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux adds Fresh Air Fiend, named a New York Times Notable Book, to his highly praised travel writings. A collection of essays, this intimate and fascinating book explores five continents and many cultures, while delving deep into the mind of Theroux.

A brilliantly funny exploration of the Sunshine State from the man who knows it best: Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Dave Barry. We never know what will happen next in Florida. We know only that, any minute now, something will. Every few months, Dave Barry gets a call from some media person wanting to know, "What the hell is wrong with Florida'" Somehow, the state's acquired an image as a subtropical festival of stupid, and as a loyal Floridian, Dave begs to differ. Sure, there was the 2000 election.

From the author of the monumental My Struggle series, Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of the masters of contemporary literature and a genius of observation and introspection, comes the first in a new autobiographical quartet based on the four seasons 28 August. Now, as I write this, you know nothing about anything, about what awaits you, the kind of world you will be born into. And I know nothing about you. I want to show you our world as it is now: the door, the floor, the water tap and the sink, the garden chair close to the wall beneath the kitchen window, the sun, the water, the trees.

Tracing twenty-five centuries of human history, from the fourth century BC to the present day, Manguel dedicates each of his chapters to a single character- ranging from our best-known thinkers, scientists, and artists to seemingly minor figures of whom we know little more than one inspired utterance- in whom he identifies a particular way of asking the question 'Why?' Above all, he aims to 'awake in readers a consciousness of their own powers of enquiry and imagination, of their right to doubt and contest assumed answers, and of their responsibility in furthering the questio