Best Essays

David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Worth the price of the book alone is the hilarious "SantaLand Diaries," Sedaris's chronicle of his time working as an elf at Macy's, covering everything from the preliminary group lectures ("You are not a dancer. --Ali Davis For those dreading the holiday season, bestseller Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames) makes life a little easier with this re-release of his uproarious essay collection, newly expanded from the original 1997 edition. This updated version includes "The Monster Mash," poached from When You Are Engulfed, in which Sedaris spends Halloween at the morgue; and "The Cow and the Turkey," a new story featuring the Secret Santa woes of barnyard animals.

Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments—to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband—creating a resonant portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. […] As the best personal essays often do, Patchett’s is a two-way mirror, reflecting both the author and her readers.” (New York Times Book Review). “Patchett’s mastery of nonfiction [is] every bit the equal of her skill as a novelist.” (Shelf Awareness). “Readable and candid, Patchett’s collection is a joyful celebration of life, love and the written word.” (Kirkus Reviews). “Novelist Ann Patchett’s excellent essay collection ranges from dogs to writing to white-knuckled air travel.” (Christian Science Monitor). “It is a feat that Ann Patchett remains so lovable as a narrator, and so engaging as a storyteller, when writing about her excellent career, personal life, dog, and husband.” (Newsday). “Patchett’s is a no-nonsense voice: clear, sane, companionable… [T]he funny, frank and nervy ‘The Getaway Car’ (possibly worth the book’s price) plunges readers, roller-coaster style, into the story of Patchett’s writing life—essentially, this collection’s real subject.” (San Francisco Chronicle). “The best advertisement for Ann Patchett’s new collection of nonfiction is anything else Ms. Patchett has written...Ms. Patchett’s style is not overly confessional, but it is beguiling in ways that make her sound like someone you’d want to know.” (New York Times).

Nature was a form of religion for naturalist, essayist, and early environmentalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–62). Not only is this an excellent alternative for students assigned to read the text that is often offered in tiny print without benefit of margins, but it is also possible to suggest this to thoughtful teens who are seeking an intellectually engaging listening experience for their personal enjoyment.

Why is it that men, and not women, have always had power, wealth, and fame? Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--and completely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen , all the while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education in the England of her day.

We see a perspective of D Day which deserves to be added to the historical record, in which ordinary German troops struggled to make sense of the onslaught that was facing them, and emerged stunned at the weaponry and sheer determination of the Allied soldiers. 'D Day Through German Eyes' presents the transcripts of interviews which my grandfather carried out with German veterans in 1954, on the tenth anniversary of D Day.