"'In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.' So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which beloved poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness, as a young child and as an adult, to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of...

Essays revisiting themes the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist, and activist has addressed throughout her career, exploring her conflicting impulses to retreat into inner contemplation and to remain deeply engaged with the world: racism, Africa, solidarity with the Palestinian people, the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Cuba, health care, and the work of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The classic collection by one of the greatest essayists of our time, E.B. White.

"From the universally acclaimed, best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: ten pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Here are six pieces written in 1968 from the "Points West" Saturday Evening Post column Joan Didion shared from 1964 to 1969 with her husband, John Gregory Dunne about: American newspapers; a session with Gamblers Anonymous;...

A compilation of fifteen of Wallace's seminal essays, all published in book form for the first time.

From literary icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of nonfiction -- funny, erudite, intimate, impassioned, and always startlingly prescient -- which grapples with such wide-ranging topics as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How do we get rid of the immense amount of plastic that's littering our seas and lands? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Is science fiction now writing us? So what...