AN NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL
Virginia Woolf called Max Beerbohm "the prince" of essayists, F. W. Dupee praised his "whim of iron" and "cleverness amounting to genius," while Beerbohm himself noted that "only the insane take themselves quite seriously." From his precocious debut as a dandy in 1890s Oxford until he put his pen aside in the aftermath of World War II, Beerbohm was recognized as an incomparable observer of modern life and an essayist whose voice was always and only his own. Here Phillip Lopate, one of the finest essayists of our day, has selected the finest of Beerbohm's essays. Whether writing about the vogue for Russian writers, laughter and philosophy, dandies, or George Bernard Shaw, Beerbohm is as unpredictable as he is unfailingly witty and wise. As Lopate writes, "Today . . . it becomes all the more necessary to ponder how Beerbohm performed the delicate operation of displaying so much personality without lapsing into sticky confession."
This selection of Oscar Wilde's writings provides a fresh perspective on his character and thinking. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these pieces show that beneath the trademark wit, Wilde was a deeply humane and visionary writer, as challenging today as he was in the late 1800s. This edition includes essays on interior design, prison reform, Shakespeare, the dramatic dialogue Decay of Lying and the seminal Soul of Man.
Michael Sells brand new Imagine That series--short, popular histories of how the past didn't quite happen--launches with four titles this year.
Each book is a flight of imagination that explores how the smallest changes to history could have spiraled out of control.
Would a happy ending to Casablanca have led to a more prejudiced world? Would the death of a cat have been the most costly road accident in the history of technology?
Imagine That . . .
Michael Sells brand new Imagine That series--short, popular histories of how the past didn't quite happen--launches with four titles this year.
Each book is a flight of imagination that explores how the smallest changes to history could have spiraled out of control.
Would a happy ending to Casablanca have led to a more prejudiced world? Would the death of a cat have been the most costly road accident in the history of technology?
Imagine That . . .
"The New York Times" bestselling author of "The Psychopath Test," Jon Ronson writes about the dark, uncanny sides of humanity with clarity and humor. "Lost at Sea "reveals how deep our collective craziness lies, even in the most mundane circumstances.
Ronson investigates the strange things we re willing to believe in, from lifelike robots programmed with our loved ones personalities to indigo children to hypersuccessful spiritual healers to the Insane Clown Posse s juggalo fans. He looks at ordinary lives that take on extraordinary perspectives, for instance a pop singer whose life s greatest passion is the coming alien invasion, and the scientist designated to greet those aliens when they arrive. Ronson throws himself into the stories in a tour de force piece, he splits himself into multiple Ronsons (Happy, Paul, and Titch, among others) to get to the bottom of credit card companies predatory tactics and the murky, fabulously wealthy companies behind those tactics. Amateur nuclear physicists, assisted-suicide practitioners, the town of North Pole, Alaska s Christmas-induced high school mass-murder plot: Ronson explores all these tales with a sense of higher purpose and universality, and suddenly, mid-read, they are stories not about the fringe of society or about people far removed from our own experience, but about all of us.
Incisive and hilarious, poignant and maddening, revealing and disturbing Ronson writes about our modern world, the foibles of contemporary culture, and the chaos that lies at the edge of our daily lives."
When you hear that now ubiquitous phrase "I find that offensive," you know you're being told to shut up. Social discourse is now dominated by competitive offence-claiming. But how did we become so thin-skinned? This book blames three culprits: official multiculturalism's relativistic conflation of tolerance with positive "recognition," narcissistic identity politics, and finally therapeutic educational interventions such as anti-bullying campaigns.
Claire Fox is a British libertarian writer. She is the founder of the Institute of Ideas think tank and a broadcaster and social commentator, appearing regularly on BBC television and radio.
