These collected and revised essays from Larry Woiwode reflect on the words and places—cultural, spiritual, and literary—that shape us in the image of the incarnate God.

Words—so small, so powerful—engender and enable our very existence. How are we to receive them, use them, hear them, and unite them?Critically acclaimed author Larry Woiwode explores the mysterious potential of words in this collection of 21 essays on the process and the significance of reading and writing.Reflect on Woiwode’s masterful meditations and you will find yourself inspired not only to write and to read, but also to believe in the transforming power of words.

“Mette Iversdatter’s window was a porthole on the winter sky.”  With this spare, vivid image, Larry Woiwode brings us into the simple and anxious rhythms of life for a Norwegian farm girl in the first decade of the twentieth century. Christmas Eve falls in the midst of deprivation as Mette’s family prepares to journey to her grandparents’ farm for Christmas. When her father fails to bag a big deer on the journey, they arrive, like everyone else, almost empty-handed. Yet despite frustration...

An “extraordinary first novel” about a father trying to escape the past and a son lost in a world of imaginary voices—winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize (Booklist).Levi Revel is a boy in danger of losing his family and maybe his mind. He’s in awe of his father, Everest—a majestic dreamer, a master builder, a man with a violent, secret past. As the family moves from state to state, Levi hears solace in the voice of God, a voice that sends hi...

From hard scrabble origins on the Plains of North Dakota, to longshoremen organizing on Manhattan’s West Side docks, to living the life of a Bohemian poet in Los Angeles and beyond, Thomas McGrath’s literary aspirations took him far from his humble beginnings.For over six decades, McGrath created poems based largely on the themes of love, work, and political justice. His love of the prairie and his early years on a working farm were central to his life. The virtues of the agrarian communit...

A delightful and provocative journey across four decades of contemporary American poetry with Stephanie Burt, “the leading poetry critic of her generation” (New York Times), as our surefooted guide.In The Poem Is You, critic and poet Stephanie Burt canvasses contemporary American poetry —from the urgency of Claudia Rankine’s Citizento the limitless energy of Juan Felipe Herrera and the erotic provocations of D. A. Powell.Burt presents a range of s...

Praise for Lawrence Joseph:"Poetry of great dignity, grace, and unrelenting persuasiveness… Joseph gives us new hope for the resourcefulness of humanity, and of poetry."---John Ashbery"Like Henry Adams, Joseph seems to be writing ahead of actual events, and that makes him one of the scariest writers I know."---David Kirby, The New York Times Book Review"The most important lawyer-poet of our era."---David Skeel, Legal Affairs

Autobiographical impostures, once they come to light, appear to us as outrageous, scandalous. They confuse lived and textual identity (the person in the world and the character in the text) and call into question what we believe, what we doubt, and how we receive information. In the process, they tell us a lot about cultural norms and anxieties. Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography examines a broad range of impostures in the United States, Canada, and Euro...

"An engrossing and impossibly wide-ranging project . . . In The Free World, every seat is a good one." —Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post**"The Free World sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written . . . One hopes Menand has a sequel in mind. The bar is set very high." —David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review | Editors' ChoiceOne of The New York Times's 100 best books of 2021 | One of The Washingto...

Thoroughly revised and expanded for a new generation of readers, this classic guide to enjoying literature to its fullest—a lively, enlightening, and entertaining introduction to a diverse range of writing and literary devices that enrich these works, including symbols, themes, and contexts—teaches you how to make your everyday reading experience richer and more rewarding.While books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings beneath the surfac...

A never-before-published collection of letters - an intimate self-portrait as well as the portrait of a century. Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a twentieth-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages. Some of the finest letters are to Bellow's fellow writers-William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ral...

In a book the San Francisco Chronicle called "unclassifiably wise" and a "masterpiece," noted Harper's essayist Garret Keizer explores the paradox that we are human only by helping others– and all too human when we try to help.It is the primal cry, the first word in a want ad, the last word on the tool bar of a computer screen. A song by the Beatles, a prayer to the gods, the reason Uncle Sam is pointing at you. What we get by with a little of, what we could use a bit more of, what...