We ​Should All Be Feminists

J. R. R. Tolkien - The ​Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
Complete ​collection of Tolkien's essays, including two on Beowulf, which span three decades beginning six years before The Hobbit to five years after The Lord of the Rings. The seven 'essays' by J.R.R. Tolkien assembled in this new paperback edition were with one exception delivered as general lectures on particular occasions; and while they mostly arose out of Tolkien's work in medieval literature, they are accessible to all. Two of them are concerned with Beowulf, including the well-known lecture whose title is taken for this book, and one with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, given in the University of Glasgow in 1953. Also included in this volume is the lecture English and Welsh; the Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford in 1959; and a paper on Invented Languages delivered in 1931, with exemplification from poems in the Elvish tongues. Most famous of all is On Fairy-Stories, a discussion of the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy, which gives insight into Tolkien's approach to the whole genre. The pieces in this collection cover a period of nearly thirty years, beginning six years before the publication of The Hobbit, with a unique 'academic' lecture on his invention (calling it A Secret Vice) and concluding with his farewell to professorship, five years after the publication of The Lord of the Rings

Jaegwon Kim - Mind ​in a Physical World
This ​text, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's late-1990s views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind—in particular, the mind-bady problem, mental causation, and reductionism. Kim construes the mind-body problem as that of finding a place for the mind in a world that is fundamentally physical. Among other points, he redefines the roles of supervenience and emergence in the discussion of the mind-body problem. Arguing that various contemporary accounts of mental causation are inadequate, he offers his own partially reductionist solution on the basis of a model of reduction. The book retains the informal tone of the lecture format.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The ​Crack-Up
The ​Crack-Up was first published by New Directions in 1945 and is now being rediscovered by a new generation of readers. Compiled and edited by Edmund Wilson shortly after Fitzgerald's death, The Crack-Up tells the story of Fitzgerald's sudden descent at age thirty-nine from a life of success and glamor to one of emptiness and despair, and his determined recovery. This vigorous and revealing collection of essays and letters renders the tale of a man whose personality still charms us all and whose reckless gaiety and genious made him a living symbol and the Jazz Age. For those who grew up with The Great Gatsby or Tender is the Night, this extraordinary autobiographical collection provides a unique personal blend of the romance and reality embodied by Fitzgerald's literature and his life.

Terry Pratchett - A ​Slip of the Keyboard
Terry ​Pratchett has earned a place in the hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld series - but in recent years he has become equally well-known and respected as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer's research and animal rights. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together for the first time the finest examples of Pratchett's non fiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important); from memories of Granny Pratchett to speculation about Gandalf's love life, and passionate defences of the causes dear to him. With all the humour and humanity that have made his novels so enduringly popular, this collection brings Pratchett out from behind the scenes of the Discworld to speak for himself - man and boy, bibliophile and computer geek, champion of hats, orang-utans and Dignity in Dying.

Nick Hornby - Ten ​Years in the Tub
At ​the end of 2003, as the first issue of The Believer was rising from the primordial ooze, Nick Hornby turned in the inaugural installment of a monthly column that immediately became a reader favorite. For the next ten years, Hornby’s incandescently funny "Stuff I’ve Been Reading” chronicled a singular reading life — one that is measured not just in "books bought” and "books read,” as each column begins, but in the way our feelings toward Celine Dion say a lot about who we are, the way Body Shop Vanilla Shower Gel can add excitement to our days, and the way John Updike might ruin our sex lives. Hornby’s column is both an impeccable, wide-ranging reading list and an indispensable reminder of why we read.

Hillary Rodham Clinton - Hard ​Choices
Hillary ​Rodham Clinton’s inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America’s 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. “All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.” In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted. Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women, youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day. Secretary Clinton’s descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use “smart power” to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world—one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

Alice Walker - The ​Way Forward is with a Broken Heart
From ​the author of THE COLOR PURPLE, fiction and autobiography blend in this fabulously rich collection of short stories 'These are the stories that came to me to be told after the close of a magical marriage to an extraordinary man that ended in a less-than-magical divorce. I found myself unmoored, unmated, ungrounded in a way that challenged everything I'd ever thought about human relationships. Situated squarely in that terrifying paradise called freedom, precipitously out on so many emotional limbs, it was as if I had been born; and in fact I was being reborn as the woman I was to become' The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart starts with a lyrical, autobiographical story of the breakdown of a marriage during the early years of the civil rights movement. Alice Walker then goes on to imagine stories that grew out of the life following that marriage. Filled with wonder at the capacity of humans to move through love and loss, this is an uplifting read that showcases the authors warmth, wit and wisdom.

Ismeretlen szerző - The ​Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman
THE ​MYTHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF NEIL GAIMAN is an award winning collection of in-depth essays on the art and style of prolific author Neil Gaiman. Winner of the 2012 President's Gold Medal of The Florida Publisher's Association Written by scholars and fans, the collection is accessible yet knowledgeable of all things Gaiman. (This is the second in Kitsune Books' "Mythological Dimensions" series - the first focused on the Doctor Who TV series).

Roberto Bolaño - Between ​Parentheses
Between ​Parentheses collects most of the newspaper columns and articles Bolano wrote during the last five years of his life, as well as the texts of some of his speeches and talks and a few scattered prologues. “Taken together,” as the editor Ignacio Echevarría remarks in his introduction, they provide “a personal cartography of the writer: the closest thing, among all his writings, to a kind of fragmented ‘autobiography.’” Bolano’s career as a nonfiction writer began in 1998, the year he became famous overnight for The Savage Detectives; he was suddenly in demand for articles and speeches, and he took to this new vocation like a duck to water. Cantankerous, irreverent, and insufferably opinionated, Bolano also could be tender (about his family and favorite places) as well as a fierce advocate for his heroes (Borges, Cortázar, Parra) and his favorite contemporaries, whose books he read assiduously and promoted generously. A demanding critic, he declares that in his “ideal literary kitchen there lives a warrior”: he argues for courage, and especially for bravery in the face of failure. Between Parentheses fully lives up to his own demands: “I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity at all levels.”

Roberto Bolaño - The ​Insufferable Gaucho
As ​Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano's short stories is that they can do the "work of a novel." The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you. Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled yet somehow haywire, a Bolano story might concern an elusive plagiarist or an elderly lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the family estate, now gone to wrack and ruin. Bolano's stories have been applauded as "bleakly luminous and perfectly calibrated" (Publishers Weekly) and "complex and provocative" (International Herald Tribune), and as Francine Prose said in The New York Times Book Review, "something extraordinarily beautiful and (at least to me) entirely new." Two fascinating essays are also included

Karen Joy Fowler - Sarah ​Canary
When ​black cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a railway camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort "the ugliest woman he could imagine" away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower. In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum in the company of another inmate sets into motion a series of adventures and misadventures that are at once hilarious, deeply moving, and downright terrifying.

Douglas R. Hofstadter - Metamagical ​Themas
Hofstadter’s ​collection of quirky essays is unified by its primary concern: to examine the way people perceive and think.

Patricia Cronin Marcello - Gloria ​Steinem
Gloria ​Steinem represents second-wave American feminism. This new biography recounts her truly fascinating life, one that was remarkable even prior to her association with the feminist movement. Steinem was destined to succeed and showed extraordinary strength dealing with difficult family circumstances, a peripatetic upbringing, and financial straights that forced her as a teenager to support herself and her divorced, emotionally troubled mother. Brains and talent became her tickets to Smith College, travel, journalism, and worldwide fame as a feminist icon. Marcello's engaging narrative was written with SteineM&Apos;s cooperation. New details and quotations are presented here for the first time. Students and others unfamiliar with SteineM&Apos;s youth and pre-Ms. Magazine days will find much to respect in her character and achievements.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Gift ​from the Sea
The ​setting of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's most widely praised book is the seashore; the time, a brief vacation which had lifted her from the distractions of everyday existence into the sphere of meditation. As the sea tosses up its gifts- shells rare and perfect- so the mind, left to its own ponderings, brings up its own treasures of the deep. Read this wonderful book and find your own treasures!

Joanna Bourke - What ​It Means to Be Human
In ​1872, a woman known only as "An Earnest Englishwoman" published a letter titled "Are Women Animals?” in which she protested against the fact that women were not treated as fully human. In fact, their status was worse than that of animals: regulations prohibiting cruelty against dogs, horses, and cattle were significantly more punitive than laws against cruelty to women. The Earnest Englishwoman’s heartfelt cry was for women to "become-animal” in order to gain the status that they were denied on the grounds that they were not part of "mankind.” In this fascinating account, Joanna Bourke addresses the profound question of what it means to be "human” rather than "animal.” How are people excluded from political personhood? How does one become entitled to rights? The distinction between the two concepts is a blurred line, permanently under construction. If the Earnest Englishwoman had been capable of looking 100 years into the future, she might have wondered about the human status of chimeras, or the ethics of stem cell research. Political disclosures and scientific advances have been re-locating the human-animal border at an alarming speed. In this meticulously researched, illuminating book, Bourke explores the legacy of more than two centuries, and looks forward into what the future might hold for humans, women, and animals.

J. M. Coetzee - White ​Writing
Though ​Coetzee is clearly knowledgeable about recent literary criticism and theory, these seven brief, nuanced essays flaunt no technical jargon; they focus on key aspects of a problematical literature. Coetzee treats the nature of the African landscape, its portrayal by non-African travelers and settlers, and its relation to European romanticism, landscape painting, and writing; the farm novel; various representations of Afrikaans and African languages in other tongues; and the racial symbolism and ideology of blood. In all cases, Coetzee's interest is in the nature and dynamics of colonial (and racist) literature.

Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake
In ​a world devastated by nuclear holocaust, Snake is a healer. One of an elite band dedicated to caring for sick humanity, she goes wherever her skills are needed. With her she takes the three deadly reptiles trhough which her cures are accomplished: a cobra, a rattlesnake, and a snake called Grass - a creature with the power to induce benign dreams, to smooth the path between life and death. Rare and valuable is the dreamsnake. When Grass is wantonly slain, Snake must journey across perilous landscapes to find another to take its place...

W. H. Auden - The ​Dyer's Hand and Other Essays
In ​this volume, W. H. Auden assembled, edited, and arranged the best of his prose writing, including the famous lectures he delivered as Oxford Professor of Poetry. The result is less a formal collection of essays than an extended and linked series of observations -- on poetry, art, and the observation of life in general. The Dyer's Hand is a surprisingly personal, intimate view of the author's mind, whose central focus is poetry -- Shakespearean poetry in particular -- but whose province is the author's whole experience of the twentieth century.

Aldous Huxley - Brave ​New World Revisited
In ​his 1932 classic dystopian novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley depicted a future society in thrall to science and regulated by sophisticated methods of social control. Nearly thirty years later in Brave New World Revisited, Huxley checked the progress of his prophecies against reality and argued that many of his fictional fantasies had grown uncomfortably close to the truth. Brave New World Revisited includes Huxley's views on overpopulation, propaganda, advertising and government control, and is an urgent and powerful appeal for the defence of individualism still alarmingly relevant today.

Philip Roth - Reading ​Myself and Others
The ​interviews, essays, and articles collected here span a quarter century of Philip Roth's distinguished career and "reveal [a] preoccupation with the relationship between the written and the unwritten world." Here is Roth on himself and his work and the controversies it's engendered. Here too are Roth's writings on the Eastern European writers he has always championed; and on baseball, American fiction, and American Jews. The essential collection of nonfiction by a true American master, Reading Myself and Others features his long interview with the Paris Review.