"John D'Agata is an alchemist who changes trash into purest gold." —Guy Davenport, Harper'sJohn D'Agata journeys the endless corridors of America's myriad halls of fame and faithfully reports on what he finds there. In a voice all his own, he brilliantl
For two decades, essayist John D'Agata has been exploring the contours of the essay through a series of innovative, informative, and expansive anthologies that have become foundational texts in the study of the genre. The breakthrough first volume, The Ne
An expansive and exhilarating world tour of innovative nonfiction writingI think the reason we've never pinpointed the real beginning to this genre is because we've never agreed on what the genre even is. Do we read nonfiction in order to receive informat
From “one of the most significant U.S. writers” (David Foster Wallace), an investigation of Yucca Mountain and human destruction in Las Vegas. When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the fed
Known as a remarkable classicist, Anne Carson weaves contemporary and ancient poetic strands with stunning style in Glass, Irony and God. This collection includes: "The Glass Essay," a powerful poem about the end of a love affair, told in the context of C
A master teacher and critic as well as a novelist, Nabokov created a fastidiously shaped series of lectures based on a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the Spanish classic, recording his insights as he proceeded. Since his teaching methods relied heavily on
Here is a colorful variety pf works by seven Greek poets and philosophers who lived from the eighth to the third centuries BC. Salvaged from shattered pottery vases and tattered scrolls of papyrus, everything decipherable from the remains of these ancient
Ranging over art and architecture, religion, and literature, these essays create an extraordinary collage of ideas, commentary, and criticism from one of this country's most brilliant writers. An eclectic stylist who crafts sentences like no one else, Dav
In the 40 essays that constitute this collection, Guy Davenport, one of America's major literary critics, elucidates a range of literary history, encompassing literature, art, philosophy and music, from the ancients to the grand old men of modernism.
