Edited by the daughter of Lolita’s original publisher, this brilliant collection of modern pieces from a wide range of celebrated writers that examine the bright and dark spell that Nabokov’s indelible left and still leaves on the cultural landscape.

George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in a prestigious graduate creative writing program. Saunders approaches each of these stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster.

A poet, essayist and cultural critic presents a profound and lasting reflection on how black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture.

Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community's own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system...