Showing titles in Essays

'Very little makes me laugh. I would say the one exception is anything by David Sedaris' GRAHAM NORTON 'Sedaris is the God of the comic essay... Sedaris' only rule: be funny or perish' LENA DUNHAM In The Land and Its People, David Sedaris investigates what it means to be a traveller, a brother...

David Sedaris's remarkable ability to uncover the hilarious absurdity teeming just below the surface of everyday life is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this new book of stories. Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life - the etiquette of having a...

Kate Humble has a knack for sharing her own journey towards a more pleasing and purposeful life in a way that inspires listeners, enables them to reassess their own lives and helps them achieve their personal goals. Having encouraged listeners to reconnect with nature in Thinking on My Feet and simplify their lifestyles in A Year of Living Simply, she turns now to reimagining the ideal home.

Dismissed by a bored author at a book signing, a betrayed young man named David Sedaris made a vow. Someday, when it was his turn at the table, he’d connect with his readers. The experience has been even more revealing than he’d hoped.In this hilarious and perceptive essay, the celebrated humorist reflects on the unusual patterns of forced socialization between author and audience, and the obligations and sometimes surprising returns of not-so-chance encounters with strangers: jokes, secrets, insights, and even charity.

“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)

Penguin Presents the audio edition of Daemon Voices, written and read by Philip Pullman with an introduction by Simon Mason. In over 30 essays, written over 20 years and recorded by the author himself in his home city of Oxford, one of the world's great story-tellers meditates on the art of...

Brought to you by Penguin. A much-loved classic of nature writing from environmentalist and the author of Waterlog, Roger Deakin, Wildwood is an exploration of the element wood in nature, our culture and our lives. From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, he embarks upon a quest that takes him...

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘The only dividend of the years’ vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.’ In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of...

The collection of 10 absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. In recounting his patients' dilemmas, Yalom not only gives us a rare and enthralling glimpse into their personal desires and motivations but also tells us his own story as he struggles to reconcile his all-too-human responses with his sensibility as a psychiatrist.

A wide-ranging selection of George Orwell's essays, written in the clear-eyed, passionate and uncompromising style that has earned him a reputation as one of Britain's greatest writers.

Brought to you by Penguin. From global bestseller and creator of Jack Reacher, comes Lee Child’s first-ever autobiographical collection. On Monday September 5th, 1994, at home, at the dining room table, I sat down to write. An hour later, I gave the first chapter to my wife. I asked, “Should...

Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys., Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty. To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in bloodletting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger.

One-of-a-kind cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman “offers up great facts, interesting cultural insights, and thought-provoking moral calculations in this look at our love affair with the anti-hero” (New York magazine). Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist”...

The View from the Cheap Seats draws together, for the first time ever, myriad nonfiction writing by international phenomenon and Sunday Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman. From Make Good Art, the speech he gave at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia that went viral, to pieces on artists and legends including Terry Pratchett, Lou Reed and Ray Bradbury, the collection offers a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Feel Free by Zadie Smith, read by Nikki Amuka-Bird. From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Changing My Mind and Swing Time - discover a second unmissable collection of essays from Zadie Smith 'Generous, courageous, and...

In this ground-breaking book, Gillian Anderson collects and introduces the anonymous sexual fantasies of hundreds of women from around the world (along with her own anonymous fantasy). The fantasies are extraordinary: they are full of desire, fear, intimacy, shame, satisfaction and, ultimately, liberation. From fantasising about someone off-limits to conjuring a scene with multiple partners, from sex that is gentle and tender to passionate and playful, these letters provide a window into the most secret part of our minds.

You'll be wincing in recognition and scratching your head in incredulity, but like Marian herself you won't be able to stop laughing at the sheer delightful absurdity that is modern life - because each and every one of us is clearly making it up as we go along. She has wonderful and tickling words of advice for those fast approaching 50.

Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young, attractive but impoverished New Yorkers. They are in love and decide to marry, but realise their chances of happiness are slim without the wealth and society that their more privileged friends take for granted. Nick and Susy agree to separate when either encounters a more eligible proposition.

Incisive, wide-ranging and witty, it explores the questions, anxieties and agendas that consume our lives. Pandora Sykes interrogates the stories we’ve been sold and the ones we tell ourselves - from happiness to wellness, womanhood to consumerism - in ways that are both surprising and reassuring.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives. And so the National Story...