Literature & Essays

Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award

'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.'

Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing sets out to walk its banks, from the source all the way to the sea. As she walks, she reflects upon the power of rivers, refracting mythology, science, social history and literature through their waters to shed light on their eternal violence and mystery.

Jorge Carrin collects bookshops: from Gotham Book Mart and the Strand Bookstore in New York City to City Lights Bookshop and Green Apple Books in San Francisco and all the bright spots in between (Prairie Lights, Tattered Cover, and countless others).

Freedom and enfranchisement. Something anarchical which pushes at boundaries. The sweetness of leisure time. Each of these rich avenues of meaning are bound up in the word 'liberty' and are explored here in varied pieces by one of the most ground-breaking writers of the last century.

An enthralling collection of nonfiction essays on a myriad of topicsfrom art and artists to dreams, myths, and memoriesobserved in #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaimans probing, amusing, and distinctive style.