{"title":"Essays","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"9780735251229","title":"Dead and Alive","description":"\u003cb\u003eA profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the past two decades, few writers have mastered the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her writing, at once an occasion for personal reckoning and communal reflection, studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds grounds for solidarity and compassion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis eagerly awaited new collection brings Smith’s dexterity as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five thematic sections—eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing—she unspools intimate dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and to her desk while researching the Tichborne trial and writing her New York Times bestselling novel The Fraud. She asks us to take another look at Flannery O'Connor and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth, and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivaled ability to think through, critically and humanely, some of the most urgent preoccupations of our troubled times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith an eye towards the past and the present, Smith examines what it means to identify with our contemporary world and the history that frames it.","brand":"Zadie Smith","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":45360783655100,"sku":"9780735251229","price":39.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_ec255068-7e7f-41ea-bc6a-44c999ab2806.jpg?v=1761679279"},{"product_id":"9798217086061","title":"Life on a Little-Known Planet","description":"\u003cb\u003eA landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth,\" \u003ci\u003eRolling Stone\u003c\/i\u003e has advised, \"you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert.\" From her National Magazine Award-winning series \u003ci\u003eThe Climate of Man\u003c\/i\u003e to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book \u003ci\u003eThe Sixth Extinction\u003c\/i\u003e, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in \u003ci\u003eLife on a Little-Known Planet\u003c\/i\u003e are her most influential and thought-provoking essays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific idees, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them. She takes readers all around the globe, from an island in Denmark that’s succeeded in going carbon neutral, to a community in Florida that voted to give rights to waterways, to the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting in a way that has implications for everyone. We meet a biologist who believes we can talk to whales, an entomologist racing to find rare caterpillars before they disappear, and a climatologist who’s considered the \"father of global warming,\" amongst other scientists at the forefront of environmental protection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe threats to our planet that Kolbert has devoted so much of her career to exposing have only grown more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of the world we are in danger of losing.","brand":"Elizabeth Kolbert","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":45382880035004,"sku":"9798217086061","price":42.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_f0d81c81-8038-4bb9-a4e3-39bc9eb8fe36.jpg?v=1762098296"},{"product_id":"9780771010361","title":"Girl on Girl","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eAtlantic\u003c\/i\u003e critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert, a blazing critique of how early-aughts pop culture turned women and girls against each other—and themselves—with disastrous consequences. An urgent read that addresses questions around the current regression of feminism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen did feminism lose its way? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of reactionary cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSophie Gilbert, a staff writer at \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, provides one answer, identifying an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the energy of third-wave and “riot grrrl” feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Gilbert mines the darker side of nostalgia, training her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. What she recounts is harrowing, from the unattainable aesthetic of Victoria’s Secret ads and explicit music videos to a burgeoning internet culture vicious towards women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren’t. Gilbert tracks many of the period’s dominant themes back to the explosion of internet porn, tracing its widespread  influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGilbert paints a devastating picture of an era when a distinctly American confluence of excess, materialism, and power-worship collided with the culture’s reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents. Amidst a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, \u003ci\u003eGirl on Girl\u003c\/i\u003e is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and how it continues to shape our world today.","brand":"Sophie Gilbert","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":46407483261116,"sku":"9780771010361","price":25.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_f06eb376-c037-4496-a22e-cb46cbc8d60e.jpg?v=1777496535"},{"product_id":"9781668079614","title":"Advice No One Asked For","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the Emmy-nominated comedian who created “the best segment in late night” (\u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e) comes this hilarious and practical collection of advice for how to live your best life in love, at work, and in comedy.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’d think with a résumé like Jenny Hagel’s—being a writer\/performer for \u003ci\u003eLate Night with Seth Meyers\u003c\/i\u003e, and head writer\/EP of \u003ci\u003eThe Amber Ruffin Show\u003c\/i\u003e—she would describe her greatest accomplishment as something like sharing the stage with Hillary Clinton, or the six times she was nominated for an Emmy. Yet, for Jenny, landing a joke or going to a fancy award show pales in comparison to her true passion: giving people advice.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Jenny is so obsessed with (addicted to?) offering unsolicited wisdom that she runs a sold-out live show in New York City called, appropriately, \u003ci\u003eJenny Hagel Gives Advice\u003c\/i\u003e. With her debut essay collection, Jenny sets out to backseat drive for as many unwitting strangers as possible. The result is a heartfelt and funny journey through a list of life-changing recommendations, like: wear black when you travel, buy an analog watch, and just because you can go into the monkey enclosure while visiting Honduras doesn’t mean that you should.","brand":"Jenny Hagel","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":46874706837692,"sku":"9781668079614","price":41.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_64d5c852-806c-4c38-aeb7-50697e60bc87.jpg?v=1779896993"},{"product_id":"9780316264839","title":"The Land and Its People","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this new collection, David Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend, in essays that are “among the best of his career\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly,\u003c\/i\u003e starred review).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A welcome return to form for the much-awarded and much-loved humorist…Sedaris remains a national treasure.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eThe Land and Its People, \u003c\/i\u003eSedaris investigates what it means to be a traveler, a brother, a lifelong friend. Trying on the role of caretaker after his boyfriend Hugh’s hip-replacement surgery, he both succeeds and fails. He covers ground with his friend Dawn and challenges her to eat a truck tire. A ambivalent Duolingo bot becomes his unlikely confidante as he attempts to describe his family in a foreign language. Ever adding to his list of “Countries I Have Been To,” he rides a horse named Tequila in Guatemala, buys a bespoke priest’s cassock in Vatican City, and goes on safari in Kenya without taking a single photo.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Time takes its toll: scrolling through his address book, he counts those he couldn’t bear to outlive, and realizes how many are already gone. He is bitten by a dog and insulted by a wee train passenger. A woman on the street late at night either sexually harasses him or doesn’t. It’s easy to agree with the lady waving a sign that reads, “Enough Is Enough.” And yet, life holds much to delight in: the massive testicles of a ram, a trip abroad with his sisters, a really excellent reptile video, a pair of well-made cotton underpants.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Throughout these essays—at once acerbic and tender, playful and profound—Sedaris shows how much there is to marvel at when you keep your head up and your eyes open, observing with warmth and curiosity our fascinating human species and the lands we inhabit.","brand":"David Sedaris","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":46874930413756,"sku":"9780316264839","price":40.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_0350a7c7-7fa7-4986-a9de-0fbb70ccf6f5.jpg?v=1779908701"},{"product_id":"9781668204511","title":"The Haves and Have-Yachts","description":"\u003cb\u003eINSTANT \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eNamed a Best Book of the Year by \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eFrom National Book Award–winning author Evan Osnos comes a “sharp…charming…regrettably timely” (\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e) collection of essays exploring American oligarchy, billionaire culture, and the new Gilded Age, offering a wry, unfiltered look at how the ultrarich shape—and sometimes warp—our social and political landscape.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe one percent now hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. In this incisive work of reportage, Osnos paints an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions that define today’s elite class: superyachts, luxury bunkers, tax dodges, and a torrent of political donations that bespeak staggering disparities of wealth and power.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWith deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about the indulgences, incentives, and psychological distortions that define our economic age. In each essay, Osnos lifts the curtain on a world rarely seen, from the outrageous to the surreal: a private wealth manager betraying an American dynasty; pop stars performing at lavish parties for children; status anxiety spilling from marinas in Monaco and Palm Beach like real-world episodes of \u003ci\u003eSuccession\u003c\/i\u003e or \u003ci\u003eThe White Lotus.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eReaders will meet disgraced moguls in a “white-collar support group,” unravel the largest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history, and explore the global ambitions of tech tycoons, including Mark Zuckerberg. A celebrated political reporter, Osnos documents the unprecedented influence Silicon Valley and Wall Street now have on Washington—and the explosive backlash this influence provokes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOriginally published in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, these essays have been revised and expanded to deliver an “eye-opening account” (\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e) of raw ambition, unimaginable fortune, and the rise of America’s modern oligarchy. Osnos’s essays are a wake-up call—a case against complacency in the face of unchecked excess, as the choices of the ultrarich ripple through our lives. Entertaining, unsettling, and eye-opening, \u003ci\u003eThe Haves and the Have-Yachts\u003c\/i\u003e couldn’t be more relevant to today’s world.","brand":"Evan Osnos","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":46892599410876,"sku":"9781668204511","price":30.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0694\/8559\/2764\/files\/BNCImageAPI_da704bbc-4d78-4b89-b210-f261276b755d.jpg?v=1780429719"}],"url":"https:\/\/wordsquirrelbooks.com\/collections\/essays.oembed","provider":"Word Squirrel Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}