Robert David Putnam is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy Scho…
Barbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-…
Ivo Andrić (Serbian Cyrillic: Иво Андрић; born Ivan Andrić) was a Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. His writings dealt mainly with life in …
JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached …
Atul Atmaram Gawande is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professo…
Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Anima…
Rick Steves is an American travel writer, television personality, and activist known for encouraging meaningful travel that emphasizes cultural immersion and thoughtful global citizenship. Born in Cal…
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie Series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland …
John Tracy Kidder was an acclaimed American nonfiction writer best known for combining literary narrative with journalistic precision. He gained national prominence with The Soul of a New Machine (198…
Amy Tan (Chinese: 譚恩美; pinyin: Tán Ēnměi; born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose novels include The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daug…
James Albert Michener is best known for his sweeping multi-generation historical fiction sagas, usually focusing on and titled after a particular geographical region. His first novel, Tales of the …
Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of American novelists. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through …
Chinese philosopher Confucius, originally Kong Fuzi and born circa 551 BC, promoted a system of social and political ethics, emphasizing order, moderation, and reciprocity between superiors and subord…
Edward Paul Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views.
Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change and The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. She lives in…
Aminatta’s books have been translated into eighteen languages. Her essays have appeared in Freeman’s, Granta, The Guardian, LitHub, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The Observer and Vogue. Sh…
Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, …
Laurence Bergreen is an award-winning biographer, historian, and chronicler of exploration. His books have been translated into over 20 languages worldwide. In October 2007, Alfred A. Knopf published …
Simone van der Vlugt is an acclaimed Dutch author, well known for her young adult novels. The reunion was her debut novel for adults, it sold over 200,000 copies and was translated into German, French…
As cohost of FOX & Friends, the number one rated morning program on cable television for the past nine years, Brian Kilmeade shares his unique perspective on the daily news. He has interviewed the big…
Téa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New …
David McCullough was a Yale-educated, two-time recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize (Truman; John Adams) and the National Book Award (The Path Between the Seas; Mornings on Horseback). His many other …
Sara Nović is author of the novels TRUE BIZ and GIRL AT WAR, as well as the illustrated nonfiction collection AMERICA IS IMMIGRANTS. Both novels won the American Library Association's Alex Award, and …
Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, c. 1584 – June 13, 1645), also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke or, by his Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku, was an expert Japanese swordsman and rōnin. Musashi, as he w…
Fiona Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of eight historical fiction novels set in iconic New York City buildings, including The Stolen Queen, The Magnolia Palace, and The Lions of Fifth A…
Meg Josephson, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist. In her private practice, she specializes in trauma-informed care through a mindfulness-based, compassion-focused lens. She holds a Master of Social …
