HPL 2023 Non-Fiction Spotlight

"Aquilino Gonell came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young boy. Although he spoke no English, he dedicated himself to his adopted land, striving for the American dream. Determined to be a success story, he joined the army to pay for college. He saw action in Iraq and returned home with PTSD. Believing in the promise of our government, he focused on healing himself and supporting his family. His hard work paid off when he landed...

"The Asking opens with new and urgent poems by Jane Hirshfield, in which she faces again the contradictions that have shaped her work: "Some take/ in witnessed suffering, pleasure," she writes. "Some make, of witnessed suffering, beauty." The volume then returns to the beginning, carrying us from her earliest volumes (including Of Gravity and Angels; Given Sugar, Given Salt; and After), up through the important recent work (Come, Thief; The Beauty;...

"'New York is a city of things unnoticed,' a young reporter named Gay Talese wrote sixty years ago. He would spend the rest of his legendary career defying that statement by noticing those details others missed, celebrating the people most reporters overlooked, understanding that it was through these minor characters that the epic story of New York and of America unfolded. Inspired by Melville's great short story 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' Talese now...

Presents a collection of the year's best essays as selected by author and critic Vivian Gornick.

"A collection of poetry and prose by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane"--

"The enthralling story of the Great Chicago Fire and the power struggle over the city's reconstruction in the wake of the tragedy. In October of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the "big one"-a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. There hadn't been a meaningful rain since July, and several big blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department's scant resources. On October 8, when Kate Leary's barn caught fire, so began...

"An examination of how the romantic narrative from Pride and Prejudice was born out of Gothic horror, how it influenced pop culture since its publishing, and how it has reinforced harmful cultural concepts of real-life romance"--

"An exploration into the continued relevance of James Baldwin's writings and wisdom"--