The Presidents of the United States of America were an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1993. The three-piece group's initial lineup consisted of vocalist and bassist Chris Ballew, drummer Jason Finn, and guitarist Dave Dederer. The band became popular in the mid-1990s for their hits "Lump" and "Peaches"—released in 1995 and 1996, respectively—which helped their self-titled debut album go triple Platinum.
Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Susan Kay Quatro is an American singer, bass guitarist, songwriter and actor. In the 1970s, she scored a string of singles that found success in Europe and Australia, with both "Can the Can" (1973) and "Devil Gate Drive" (1974) reaching No. 1 in several countries.
Jeanette Winterson is an English author.
John Stephen Piper is an American theologian and pastor in the Reformed Baptist tradition. He is also chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Piper taught biblical studies at Bethel University for six years (1974–1980), before serving as pastor for preaching and vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church (Converge) in Minneapolis for 33 years (1980–2013).
Claire Denis is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film Beau Travail (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time. Other acclaimed works include Trouble Every Day (2001), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009), High Life (2018) and Both Sides of the Blade (2022), the last of which won her the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. For her film Stars at Noon (2022), Denis competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. She won the Grand Prix, sharing the award with Lukas Dhont's film Close.
Susan Orlean is an American journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside. In 2021, Orlean joined the writing team of HBO comedy series How To with John Wilson.
Diana J. Gabaldon is an American author, known for the Outlander series of novels. Her books merge multiple genres, featuring elements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure and science fiction/fantasy. A television adaptation of the Outlander novels premiered on Starz in 2014.
Richard Rohr, is an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970, founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque in 1987. In 2011, PBS called him "one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world".
Christian hedonism is a Christian doctrine believed by some evangelicals. The term was coined by John Piper in his 1986 book Desiring God based on Vernard Eller's earlier use of the term hedonism to describe the same concept. Piper summarizes this philosophy of the Christian life as "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."
Claire Keegan is an Irish writer known for her short stories, which have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Granta, and The Paris Review.
David Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and author.
Adam Davidson is an American journalist. He was a co-founder of NPR's Planet Money program. Previously he has covered globalization issues, the Asian tsunami, and the war in Iraq, for which he won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. He and Adam McKay were former co-hosts of Surprisingly Awesome from Gimlet Media. Davidson worked as an economics columnist for The New York Times Magazine and in 2016 took a position at The New Yorker.
Peter Trachtenberg is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and memoir.
Outlander is a historical drama television series based on the Outlander novel series by Diana Gabaldon. Developed by Ronald D. Moore, the show premiered on August 9, 2014, on Starz. It stars Caitríona Balfe as Claire Randall, a former World War II military nurse in Scotland who, in 1945, finds herself transported back in time to 1743. There she encounters, falls in love with and marries a dashing Highland warrior named Jamie Fraser, a tacksman of Gabaldon's fictionalized version of Clan Fraser of Lovat. Here, Claire becomes embroiled in the Jacobite rising.
Works by or about James Wood, English critic and writer.
Claire Dederer is an American writer who regularly contributes essays, reviews and criticism to publications including The New York Times. She has written three books, Love and Trouble, Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, and Monsters.
Jami Attenberg is an American fiction writer and essayist. She is the author of a short story collection, six novels, including the best-seller The Middlesteins (2012), and a memoir, I Came All ThisWay to Meet You (2022).
Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems is the debut collection of poetry by Robin Coste Lewis, published in 2015 by Alfred A. Knopf. The title poem, 79 pages long, is named for an image by British painter Thomas Stothard. The collection won the National Book Award for Poetry, the first debut collection to win the award since 1974.
The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America is a 2010 book on the history of yoga as exercise by the American journalist Stefanie Syman. It spans the period from the first precursors of American yoga, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau, the arrival of Vivekananda, the role of Hollywood with Indra Devi, the hippie generation, and the leaders of a revived but now postural yoga such as Bikram Choudhury and Pattabhi Jois.
