From Jonathan Franzen, the National Book Award–winning author of The Corrections, here are fourteen provocative and entertaining answers to the question of how to be alone in a noisy and distracting mass culture. Although Franzen’s subjects range from the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, each piece wrestles with essential themes of his writing: the erosion of civic life and private dignity, the dubious claims of technology and psychology, the tragic shape of the individual life.Recent pieces include a moving essay on his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and a rueful account of Franzen’s brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author. This is a book that will further cement Franzen’s reputation as one of the sharpest, toughest, and liveliest writers at work today. About the Author: Jonathan Franzen is the author of four novels, The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections (winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction) and the #1 international bestseller Freedom; two collections of essays, How to Be Alone and Farther Away; and a personal history, The Discomfort Zone. In 2010, TIME magazine named him the “Great American Novelist.” Franzen lives in New York City, New York, and Santa Cruz, California. |