William Shawn once called The Talk of the Town the soul of the magazine. The section began in the first issue, in 1925. But it wasn't until a couple of years later, when E. B. White and James Thurber arrived, that the Talk of the Town story became what it is today: a precise piece of journalism that always gets the story and has a little fun along the way.

The Fun of It is the first anthology of Talk pieces that spans the magazine's life. Edited by Lillian Ross, the longtime Talk reporter and New Yorker staff writer, the book brings together pieces by the section's most original writers. Only in a collection of Talk stories will you find E. B. White visiting a potter's field; James Thurber following Gertrude Stein at Brentano's; Geoffrey Hellman with Cole Porter at the Waldorf Towers; A. J. Liebling on a book tour with Albert Camus; Maeve Brennan ventriloquizing the long-winded lady; John Updike navigating the passageways of midtown; Calvin Trillin marching on Washington in 1963; Jacqueline Onassis chatting with Cornell Capa; Ian Frazier at the Monster Truck and Mud Bog Fall Nationals; John McPhee in virgin forest; Mark Singer with sixth-graders adopting Hudson River striped bass; Adam Gopnik in Flatbush visiting the ìgrandest theatre devoted exclusively to the movies; Hendrik Hertzberg pinning down a Sulzberger on how the Times got colorized; George Plimpton on the tennis court with Boris Yeltsin; and Lillian Ross reporting good little stories for more than forty-five years. They and dozens of other Talk contributors provide an entertaining tour of the most famous section of the most famous magazine in the world.

"Lively, detailed, and filled with humanity and wit. Her tour of good writing [is] a wonderful journalism handbook, memoir, and addition to books on the New Yorker ."- Booklist . For half a century, Lillian Ross has been writing remarkable and timeless journalism for The New Yorker . Her spirited, funny, factual short stories in The Talk of the Town and her unforgettable profiles have won her a legion of admirers. Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism reprints some of her best-loved pieces, and some new ones, along with her own commentary. A primer on good writing, a tribute to the art of journalism, Reporting Back is not only a casebook for writing, it is the unforgettable record of Lillian Ross's joy in the pursuit of excellence in reporting.

From the inimitable New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross--"a collection of her most luminous New Yorker pieces" (Entertainment Weekly, grade: A).A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1945, Lillian Ross is one of the few journalists who worked for both the magazine's founding editor, Harold Ross, and its current editor, David Remnick. She "made journalistic history by pioneering the kind of novelistic nonfiction that inspired later work" (The New York Times). Reporting Always is a collection of Ross's iconic New Yorker profiles and "Talk of the Town" pieces that spans forty years. "This glorious collection by a master of the form" (Susan Orlean) brings the reader into the hotel rooms of Ernest Hemingway, John Huston, and Charlie Chaplin; Robin Williams's living room and movie set; Harry Winston's office; the tennis court with John McEnroe; Ellen Barkin's New York City home, the crosstown bus with upper east side school children; and into the lives of other famous, and not so famous, individuals. "Millennials would do well to study Ross and to study her closely," says Lena Dunham. Whether reading for pleasure or to learn about the craft, Reporting Always is a joy for readers of all ages.