Showing results for "A Reflection" in Essays

Whether reporting from the London cinema, Cotswolds villages, second-hand bookshops, war zones or political trouble spots, Graham Greene's novelistic gifts for detail, drama and compassionate curiosity provide unique and resonant insights into his life and times. To know war on any continent, listen to ‘A Memory of Indo-China’; to glimpse high political chicanery, listen to ‘The Great Spectacular’; to feel the flush and aftermath of revolutionary change, take up his pieces about Cuba.

A fine collection of essays representing C. S. Lewis at his best and most brilliant. As ever, Lewis' clear and eloquent mind give plenty of food for thought, especially as he aims his intellectual ammunition at the modern myths still so prevalent in our postmodern culture and encourages a robust defence of the Christian Gospel.

In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinéad Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within this audiobook, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself. Throughout this wide-ranging collection she also turns her restless eye outwards delving into work, art and our very ways of seeing. In the tradition of some of our finest life writers, and yet still in her own spirited, generous voice, Sinéad takes us on a journey that is both uniquely personal and yet universal in its resonance.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Canonized, overlooked, and forgotten African American poets star in Terrance Hayes's brilliant contemplations of personal, canonical, and allegorical literary development. Proceeding from Toni Morrison's aim to expand the landscape of literary imagination in Playing in the Dark ("I want to draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography"), Watch Your Language charts a lyrical geography of reading and influence in poetry.

In a complex world, who is allowed to be complicated? Who is entitled to a messy life full of triumphs, mistakes and tedium? Until recently, not Black women. When stories about Black women are limited, there’s a tendency to platform the inspirational. Yet when it comes to finding kaleidoscopic stories for – and by – black women, they are few and far between. Through Kimberly’s personal stories, the essays in black girl, no magic explore race, class, the meritocracy myth, sex, desire, dating, friendship, the modern family and drugs.

On October 7th, 2023, Jews in Israel were attacked in the largest pogrom since the Holocaust. It was a day felt by Jews everywhere who came together to process and speak out in ways some never had before. In this collection, 75 contributors speak to Jewish joy, celebration, laughter, food, trauma, loss, love, and family, and the common threads that course through the Jewish people: resilience and humor.

Jonny Sun is back with a collection of essays and other writings in his unique, funny, and heartfelt style. The pieces range from long meditations on topics like loneliness and being an outsider, to short humor pieces, conversations, and memorable one-liners. Jonny's honest writings about his struggles with feeling productive, as well as his difficulties with anxiety and depression, will connect deeply with his fans as well as anyone attempting to create in our chaotic world. It also features a recipe for scrambled eggs that might make you cry.

Eu quero a árvore que existe é uma coletânea de seis ensaios que representam diferentes facetas da nossa ânsia de descobrir e desfrutar a realidade que nos cerca. Em textos repletos de delicadeza e lucidez, larinha divide conosco sua visão única da existência, numa conversa franca e aberta que passeia pelo que há de mais profundo e de mais banal na jornada de todos nós.

Stillpoint is the moment between thoughts, when all mental chatter ceases and the clarity of absolute mind emerges from within. Stillpoint is also an audiobook of short stories and original music from Grammy-winning producer, writer, and Zenist Barrett Martin. Building on his previous two audiobooks that also came with musical soundtracks (The Singing Earth [2017] and The Way Of The Zen Cowboy [2019]), Stillpoint is his third audiobook with 18 stories and 15 original compositions that provide the soundtrack to the book.

One of the most distinguished voices in American letters, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition. In this wise and wonderous work, Momaday shares stories and memories throughout his life, stories that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound spiritual connection to the American landscape and reverence for the natural world.

We treat the body as an afterthought, until it no longer can be. Until the pain or the pleasure is too great. Sinéad Gleeson's life has been marked by terrible illness, including leukemia and debilitating arthritis. As a child, she bathed in the springs of Lourdes, ever hopeful that her body would cooperate, ever looking forward to the day when she could take her body for granted. But just as she turns inward to explore her own pain, and then the marvel of recovery, and then the arrival of her greatest joys—falling in love, becoming a mother—she turns her gaze outward.

A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life by Pat Conroy is a new nonfiction collection of letters, interviews, and magazine articles spanning Conroy's long literary career, supplemented by touching pieces from the beloved author's many friends. The book collects some of Conroy's most charming pieces of short nonfiction, many of them addressed directly to his listeners, with his habitual greeting: "Hey, out there".

David Shields’s The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power is an immersion into the perils, limits, and possibilities of human intimacy. All at once a love letter to his wife, a nervy reckoning with his own fallibility, a meditation on the impact of porn on American culture, and an attempt to understand marriage (one marriage, the idea of marriage, all marriages), The Trouble with Men is exquisitely balanced between the personal and the anthropological, nakedness and restraint.

In her remarkable literary debut, Taylor (AKA Self Esteem) will explore the devolution of a woman. As Self Esteem, Rebecca Taylor has given voice to the feelings of insecurity and misogyny-induced frustration whilst emboldening a whole new audience with powerful, truth-telling lyricism. Her latest album 'Prioritise Pleasure' was voted the Guardian's top album of 2021. She has written the music for Prima Facie, Jodie Comer's theatre debut and music for Dolly Alderton's TV Adaptation for the BBC of Everything I Know About Love.

In this thought-provoking essay, Life Coach and Author Joseff McKenneth Goodwin, explores how modern civilization, shaped by a “colonized dream,” manipulates our beliefs, relationships, and overall existence. Through a reflective journey, the essay challenges listeners to examine the hidden forces that influence their desires, values, and pursuit of success. Blending philosophical insights with spiritual perspectives, it uncovers how societal conditioning has trapped us in cycles of self-sacrifice, emotional disconnection, and constant striving for external validation.

In 2014, Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a tourist at a deadly revolution. At first she is enamored with the Ukrainians' idealism, which reminds her of her own patriotic family. But when the romantic revolution melts into a war with Russia, she becomes disillusioned, prompting a return home to the US and the diaspora community that raised her. As the daughter of a man who studies Ukrainian dissidents for a living, the granddaughter of war refugees, and the great-granddaughter of a gulag victim, Bilocerkowycz has inherited a legacy of political oppression.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Alarms and Discursions and enjoy GK Chesterton's prolific writing.

Echoing the lyricism of Leonard Cohen and the lighthearted poignance of Anne Lamott, Suspended by No String is a thought-provoking anthology of spiritual reflections that will inspire listeners to reclaim their childlike sense of wonder. Suspended by No String is a collection of essays, personal narrative, and poetical reflections for listeners of all spiritual stripes—those who are devout, those who aren't sure what to believe, and those who may not be religious in a traditional sense but who nevertheless want to build a relationship with a force infinitely beyond themselves.