"The day after which nothing would be the same for him was Friday, May 20, 1927. That morning, alone in a little plane powered by a single engine, Charles A. Lindbergh took off from a muddy runway on the outskirts of New York. His destination was Paris." So begins Brendan Gill's book about the most extraordinary feat of one of our country's most extraordinary men. With clarity of vision and characteristic elegance, Gill gives us in Lindbergh Alone a meditation on one man's unprecedented accomplishment, and the world's overwhelming response to it. Originally published for the fiftieth anniversary of the flight, Gill did not intend to write a standard biography of Lindbergh; rather, Gill attempted to describe an unknown young man at one moment in history, and to examine the forces that led him to act as he did. The 1920s were a period that sought out heroes and worshipped them extravagantly; few heroes were so unlike the age that fostered them as this "unheralded boy" of twenty-five. A shy man, bold hearted and firm of purpose, the Lindbergh we come to know in Gill's book is one whose intelligence and strength of will enabled him, through a single, superb act, to become perhaps the most celebrated figure of his time. Lindbergh Alone persuades us that Lindbergh's valorous flight and subsequent renown were the natural consequences of his upbringing and his own nature. It also demonstrates that, on rare occasions, a man is capable of making history by his own choice.

Dorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of her age in her writing. The decadent 1920S and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. With a biting wit and perceptive insight, Dorothy Parker examines the social mores of her day and exposes the darkness beneath the dazzle. Her own life exemplified this duality, for a while she was one of the most talked-about women of her day, she was also known as a "masochist whose passion for unhappiness knew no bounds". As philosopher Irwin Edman said, she was "a Sappho who could combine a heartbreak with a wisecrack". Her dissection of the jazz age in poetry and prose is collected in this volume along with articles and reviews.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is often described as the greatest of American architects. His works,among them Taliesin North, Taliesin West, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax buildings, the Guggenheim Museum,earned him a good measure of his fame, but his flamboyant personal life earned him the rest. Here Brendan Gill, a personal friend of Wright and his family, gives us not only the fullest, fairest, and most entertaining account of Wright to date, but also strips away the many masks the architect tirelessly constructed to fascinate his admirers and mislead his detractors. Enriched by hitherto unpublished letters and 300 photographs and drawings, this definitive biography makes Wright, in all his creativity, crankiness, and zest, fairly leap from its pages.

For over sixty years Brendan Gill has been a contented inmate of the singular institution known as The New Yorker. This affectionate account of the magazine, long known as a home for congenital unemployables, is a celebration of its wards and attendants - William Shawn, Harold Ross's gentle and courtly successor as editor; the incorrigible mischief-maker James Thurber; the two Whites, Katherine and E.B.; John O'Hara, "master of the fancied slight"; and, among a hundred others, Peter Arno, Saul Steinberg, Edmund Wilson, Lewis Mumford, and Pauline Kael. Brendan Gill has known them all, and by virtue of his virtually total recall, keen eye, and impeccable prose, his diverting portraits of these eccentrics in rage and repose are amply supplied with both dimples and warts. Here at The New Yorkernow updated with a new introduction detailing the reigns of Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown - is a delightful tour of New York's most glorious madhouse.

Long Island, particularly the North Shore, was the site of some of the most lavish and extravagant residences in the world. The island's beauty, its proximity and easy travel access to New York, and its suitability for yachting and other recreational pursuits made it the perfect place for the leisure class. From the Civil War to World War II, almost 1000 estates were built there, often by the nation's richest families--Morgan, Vanderbilt, Hearst, Astor, Woolworth, Chrysler, Whitney, Tiffany, Frick, and Guggenheim, to name a few. Long Island's rich architectural history is presented in this important and long-awaited volume. It is at once a fascinating glimpse at the homes of some of America's wealthiest families and a complete compendium of the architects who designed these breathtaking houses. Among them are Delano & Aldrich; Cass Gilbert; Richard Morris Hunt; McKim, Mead & White; Horace Trumbauer; Calvert Vaux; and Warren & Wetmore.