An engaging reassessment of the celebrated essayist and his relevance to contemporary readers

More than two centuries after his birth, Ralph Waldo Emerson remains one of the presiding spirits in American culture. Yet his reputation as the starry-eyed prophet of self-reliance has obscured a much more complicated figure who spent a lifetime wrestling with injustice, philosophy, art, desire, and suffering. James Marcus introduces readers to this Emerson, a writer of self-interrogating genius whose visionary flights are always grounded in Yankee shrewdness.

This Emerson is a rebel. He is also a lover, a friend, a husband, and a father. Having declared his great topic to be the infinitude of the private man, he is nonetheless an intensely social being who develops Transcendentalism in the company of Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Theodore Parker. And although he resists political activism early on--hoping instead for a revolution in consciousness--the burning issue of slavery ultimately transforms him from cloistered metaphysician to fiery abolitionist.

Drawing on telling episodes from Emerson's life alongside landmark essays like Self-Reliance, Experience, and Circles, Glad to the Brink of Fear reveals how Emerson shares our preoccupations with fate and freedom, race and inequality, love and grief. It shows, too, how his desire to see the world afresh, rather than accepting the consensus view, is a lesson that never grows old.

The Columbia Journalism Review's Second Read series features distinguished journalists revisiting key works of reportage. Launched in 2004 by John Palattella, who was then editor of the magazine's book section, the series also allows authors address such ongoing concerns as the conflict between narrative flair and accurate reporting, the legacy of New Journalism, the need for reporters to question their political assumptions, the limitations of participatory journalism, and the temptation to substitute truthiness for hard, challenging fact. Representing a wide range of views, Second Read embodies the diversity and dynamism of contemporary nonfiction while offering fresh perspectives on works by Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Rachel Carson, and Gabriel Garc a M rquez, among others. It also highlights pivotal moments and movements in journalism as well as the innovations of award-winning writers.

Essays include Rick Perlstein on Paul Cowan's The Tribes of America; Nicholson Baker on Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year; Dale Maharidge on James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Marla Cone on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring; Ben Yagoda on Walter Bernstein's Keep Your Head Down; Ted Conover on Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones; Jack Shafer on Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; Connie Schultz on Michael Herr's Dispatches; Michael Shapiro on Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day; Douglas McCollam on John McPhee's Annals of the Former World; Tom Piazza on Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night; Thomas Mallon on William Manchester's The Death of a President; Miles Corwin on Gabriel Garc a M rquez's The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor; David Ulin on Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem; and Claire Dederer on Betty MacDonald's Anybody Can Do Anything.

A funny, contemplative memoir of working at Amazon in the early years, when it was a struggling online bookstore (San Francisco Chronicle).

In a book that Ian Frazier has called a fascinating and sometimes hair-raising morality tale from deep inside the Internet boom, James Marcus, hired by Amazon.com in 1996--when the company was so small his e-mail address could be james@amazon.com--looks back at the ecstatic rise, dramatic fall, and remarkable comeback of the consummate symbol of late 1990s America.

Observing how it was to be in the right place (Seattle) at the right time (the '90s) (Chicago Reader), Marcus offers a ringside seat on everything from his first interview with Jeff Bezos to the company's bizarre Nordic-style retreats, in a clear-eyed, first-person account, rife with digressions on the larger cultural meaning throughout (Henry Alford, Newsday).

Marcus tells his story with wit and candor. --Booklist, starred review

Marius following Yuri into the mainland of Thenus after his friend's banishment, leaves him alone, pathless and far from Highwash, his childhood home. Alone with Yuri, Marius finds himself overwhelmed quickly, haunting premonitions filling his waking hours while the newly discovered world of Thenus pulls at his soul.

Ralis, injured from his conflict with the Prince of Thenus, finds himself quickly facing demons of old. His old self an ever-returning battle, forcing him to face events from the past.

Sebastien, lost amidst Thenus' winter fields, soon realizes even the grandest of tales quickly untangle into webs of lies.

Dragged along the pathway of fate, each of them unknowingly rush forward towards a fate strung up by the will of others. The choices they have to make soon determine the outcome of everyone's life.

Marius following Yuri into the mainland of Thenus after his friend's banishment, leaves him alone, pathless and far from Highwash, his childhood home. Alone with Yuri, Marius finds himself overwhelmed quickly, haunting premonitions filling his waking hours while the newly discovered world of Thenus pulls at his soul.

Ralis, injured from his conflict with the Prince of Thenus, finds himself quickly facing demons of old. His old self an ever-returning battle, forcing him to face events from the past.

Sebastien, lost amidst Thenus' winter fields, soon realizes even the grandest of tales quickly untangle into webs of lies.

Dragged along the pathway of fate, each of them unknowingly rush forward towards a fate strung up by the will of others. The choices they have to make soon determine the outcome of everyone's life.

Marius and his fellow brothers and sister have spent their entire lives living under Elder Macaro's regime in Highwash. But their time has come to face the trial of apprentices and see if they're ready to become true mages.

Whilst Sebastien first born prince of Lord Salamon unknowingly seeks the resolution of his Father's vengeance.

And Ralis the once beggared boy faces his greatest enemy, himself. Each of their lives makes no difference. Each of them is intertwined in a greater fate, a larger destiny. Because lurking deep beyond the village of Highwash an immense power is hidden, calling them all forth.

An engaging reassessment of the celebrated essayist and his relevance to contemporary readers

More than two centuries after his birth, Ralph Waldo Emerson remains one of the presiding spirits in American culture. Yet his reputation as the starry-eyed prophet of self-reliance has obscured a much more complicated figure who spent a lifetime wrestling with injustice, philosophy, art, desire, and suffering. James Marcus introduces readers to this Emerson, a writer of self-interrogating genius whose visionary flights are always grounded in Yankee shrewdness.

This Emerson is a rebel. He is also a lover, a friend, a husband, and a father. Having declared his great topic to be the infinitude of the private man, he is nonetheless an intensely social being who develops Transcendentalism in the company of Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Theodore Parker. And although he resists political activism early on--hoping instead for a revolution in consciousness--the burning issue of slavery ultimately transforms him from cloistered metaphysician to fiery abolitionist.

Drawing on telling episodes from Emerson's life alongside landmark essays like Self-Reliance, Experience, and Circles, Glad to the Brink of Fear reveals how Emerson shares our preoccupations with fate and freedom, race and inequality, love and grief. It shows, too, how his desire to see the world afresh, rather than accepting the consensus view, is a lesson that never grows old.

The Columbia Journalism Review's Second Read series features distinguished journalists revisiting key works of reportage. Launched in 2004 by John Palattella, who was then editor of the magazine's book section, the series also allows authors address such ongoing concerns as the conflict between narrative flair and accurate reporting, the legacy of New Journalism, the need for reporters to question their political assumptions, the limitations of participatory journalism, and the temptation to substitute truthiness for hard, challenging fact. Representing a wide range of views, Second Read embodies the diversity and dynamism of contemporary nonfiction while offering fresh perspectives on works by Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Rachel Carson, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. It also highlights pivotal moments and movements in journalism as well as the innovations of award-winning writers.

Essays include Rick Perlstein on Paul Cowan's The Tribes of America; Nicholson Baker on Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year; Dale Maharidge on James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Marla Cone on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring; Ben Yagoda on Walter Bernstein's Keep Your Head Down; Ted Conover on Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones; Jack Shafer on Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; Connie Schultz on Michael Herr's Dispatches; Michael Shapiro on Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day; Douglas McCollam on John McPhee's Annals of the Former World; Tom Piazza on Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night; Thomas Mallon on William Manchester's The Death of a President; Miles Corwin on Gabriel García Márquez's The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor; David Ulin on Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem; and Claire Dederer on Betty MacDonald's Anybody Can Do Anything.