New essays by the Women's Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead, Home and Lila. In this collection, Marilynne Robinson impels us to action and offers us hope.

'Grace and intelligence ...[her work] defines universal truths about what it means to be human' BARACK OBAMA

Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize; and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith.

Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.

"Robinson urges her audience to stand by what makes us human - "creative, knowing, efficacious, deeply capable of loyalty". The argument is sophisticated and persuasive" - Guardian

"A bracing, stringent book that continually challenges the reader" - Telegraph

"There is much rich matter in these essays. They are simultaneously challenging, disturbing and rewarding" - Catholic Herald