We have tried for diversity of author, style, and subject. After reading more than a thousand essays, after making a short list of a hundred and fifty, we have finally arrived at this collection. Writers explain, describe, narrate, argue, and reminisce about childhood, cosmology, Bosnia, the Miss America contest, rape, habits of the civilized mind, dinosaurs, apple pie, the fourteenth century, snobbishness, clothing, people named Nye, mothers, and multiple sclerosis.
Nothing human is alien to the essay, nor is any method or length or degree of difficulty alien.
Real love, she would add, to avoid any factitious misunderstanding. But apart from that simple adjective, she never added anything more. I was a long way off, in Iowa City, with things still to say to him. I didn't have the chance to tell him good-bye, or that I thought he was doing great at his new job. That I was proud of him for making a comeback.