Essays

One of America's finest essayists writes about 40 literary masterpieces that have been wrongfully forgotten or were ignored in the first place.

In 1979 Hitchcock was the recipient of the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. Before presenting the award to him, Oscar winner Ingrid Bergman, who starred in three Hitchcock films-Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949)-called him "an admirable genius."

From "Hitchcock and the Ladies"

Atlas told her that "[I'm going to] teach you boxing . . . so that you can learn how to go into dark places and not get broken down. If you can learn that bit of the discipline that fighters learn, you can take that onto the stage with you."

From "Teddy's Adventures in Trainer Land"

The trade that sent Rogers to the Rangers foreshadowed many of the idiotic trades and front office and coaching changes the Whalers made during their NHL existence.

From "Trading Mike Rogers"

Chosen by the American Society of Magazine Editors, the stories in this anthology include National Magazine Award-winning works of public interest, reporting, feature writing, and fiction. This year's selections include Pamela Colloff (Texas Monthly) on the agonizing, decades-long struggle by a convicted murderer to prove his innocence; Dexter Filkins (The New Yorker) on the emotional effort by an Iraq War veteran to make amends for the role he played in the deaths of innocent Iraqis; Chris Jones (Esquire) on Robert A. Caro's epic, ongoing investigation into the life and work of Lyndon Johnson; Charles C. Mann (Orion) on the odds of human beings' survival as a species; and Roger Angell (The New Yorker) on aging, dying, and loss. The former infantryman Brian Mockenhaupt (Byliner) describes modern combat in Afghanistan and its ability both to forge and challenge friendships; Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic) reflects on the complex racial terrain traversed by Barack Obama; Frank Rich (New York) assesses Mitt Romney's ambiguous candidacy; and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate) looks at the current and future implications of an eventful year in Supreme Court history. The volume also includes an interview on the art of screenwriting with Terry Southern from The Paris Review and an award-winning short story by Stephen King published in Harper's magazine.