Featuring multiple narrators, each essay is brought uniquely and vivdly to life.“The essayist needs the objective world,” writes M. Gessen, the guest editor of The Best American Essays 2026, asking, “But does the objective world need the essayist?” There is no straightforward answer to Gessen’s query, yet the authors in this volume tackle it headfirst. In doing so, they provide a mosaic depicting the year 2025, examining the degradation of American media, ...

In this “extraordinary family memoir,”* the National Book Award–winning author of The Future Is History reveals the story of her two grandmothers, who defied Fascism and Communism during a time when tyranny reigned.*The New York Times Book ReviewIn the 1930s, as waves of war and persecution were crashing over Europe, two young Jewish women began separate journeys of survival. Ester Goldberg was a rebel from Bialystok, Pola...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITING“A gripping narrative and a stunning piece of investigative journalism… [that] gives us the human side to the story of two young men who must be understood as more than monsters” (Christian Science Monitor)The National Book Award winning journalist recounts how the American dream went wrong for two immigrants, and the nightmare that resulted**On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded near the finis...

'Given the bedlam it describes, Raising Raffi is impressively clear-sighted, entertaining and analytical' - Financial Times'A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene' - Dwight Garner, New York Times'Enga ging, accessible, down to earth ... There is much wry humour here' - James Cook , Times Literary SupplementKei...

From the acclaimed author of The Man Without a Face, the previously untold story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia that reveals the complex, strange, and heart-wrenching truth behind the familiar narrative that begins with pogroms and ends with emigration.In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan.The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Com...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGFrom National Book Award winner Masha Gessen, the heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies.**On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the we...

In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved one of the world's greatest intellectual puzzles. The Poincare conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 2000, the Clay Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a solution. Perelman was awarded the prize this year - and declined the money. Journalist Masha G...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGThe National Book Award winner's biography of a ruthless man's ascent to near-absolute power.**“In a country where journalists critical of the government have a way of meeting untimely deaths, Gessen has shown remarkable courage in researching and writing this unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia.” —The Wall Street Journal“Thanks to fearless reporting and ac...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGWINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONWINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD**The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces t...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGWINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONWINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD**The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces t...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGThe National Book Award winner's biography of a ruthless man's ascent to near-absolute power.**“In a country where journalists critical of the government have a way of meeting untimely deaths, Gessen has shown remarkable courage in researching and writing this unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia.” —The Wall Street Journal“Thanks to fearless reporting and ac...

**“A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times“Memoirs of fatherhood are rarely so honest or so blunt.” —Daniel Engber, The Atlantic“An instant classic.” —M. C. Mah, RomperNAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY LIT HUB & THE MILLIONSAn unsparing, loving account of fatherhood and the surprising, magical, and maddening first five years of a son’s life**“I...