Collecting Art and Grief in Letters to Camondo
De Waal pays homage to delicate, restrained elegance of good style, a kind of style that requires keen perception, artisanal knowledge, and sensitivity.
Nonfiction
All the Roads Are Open by Annemarie Schwarzenbach
For Schwarzenbach, travel is more than geographical—it’s a psychological and introspective undertaking, as well as an intimate metaphor of living and becoming, especially for an androgynous woman who breaks boundaries and social taboos.
Homo Irrealis by André Aciman
By daring to call forth the irrealis mood, to summon what we usually skitter around and stumble upon, Aciman sets the mood—incurring the awkwardness of doing so, and giving us the chance to realize something it might take a long time to understand.
The Age of Skin by Dubravka Ugrešić
Dubravka Ugrešić a formidable and unique cultural critic. She demands that we see deeper, even where we refuse to look.
The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays by Elisa Gabbert
Elisa Gabbert’s new essay collection is both an examination of conscience and a cataloging of modern American anxiety. It touches our pressure points with the intention of helping us identify sources of pain in our own lives.
Miracle Country by Kendra Atleework
Atleework’s memoir is steeped in her passion for California’s Owens Valley and her striking observations. It reveals a life defined by an absence, and Atleework points us to the power in this understanding.
Of Color by Jaswinder Bolina
Bolina’s collection explores the complicated ground of being “of color,” being an immigrant, being American, and being human with an admirable fluency. He entrusts us with an honest conversation—one that we should all be having with one other.
Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity by Porochista Khakpour
Porochista Khakpour’s essay collection is a fearless reflection of an immigrant searching for home and for herself.
The Criminal Child by Jean Genet
Genet operated in social structures in order to subvert them, to explore and craft beauty from the darkest corners of modern civilization. While most artists can only imagine a prison sentence, prostitution, ecstasy, or evil, Genet lived through these experiences and, in some cases, sought them out.