A "New York Magazine" Best Book of the Year
A" Huffington Post" Best Book of the Year
Twenty contemporary authors introduce twenty sterling examples of the short story from the pages of "The Paris Review." What does it take to write a great short story? In "Object Lessons," twenty contemporary masters of the genre answer that question, sharing favorite stories from the pages of "The Paris Review." Over the course of the last half century, the Review has launched hundreds of careers while publishing some of the most inventive and best-loved stories of our time. This anthology---the first of its kind---is more than a treasury: it is an indispensable resource for writers, students, and anyone else who wants to understand fiction from a writer's point of view. "Some chose classics. Some chose stories that were new even to us. Our hope is that this collection will be useful to young writers, and to others interested in literary technique. Most of all, it is intended for readers who are not (or are no longer) in the habit of reading short stories. We hope these object lessons will remind them how varied the form can be, how vital it remains, and how much pleasure it can give."--from the Editors' Note WITH SELECTIONS BYDaniel Alarcon - Donald Barthelme - Ann Beattie - David Bezmozgis - Jorge Luis Borges - Jane Bowles - Ethan Canin - Raymond Carver - Evan S. Connell - Bernard Cooper - Guy Davenport - Lydia Davis - Dave Eggers - Jeffrey Eugenides - Mary Gaitskill - Thomas Glynn - Aleksandar Hemon - Amy Hempel - Mary-Beth Hughes - Denis Johnson - Jonathan Lethem - Sam Lipsyte - Ben Marcus - David Means - Leonard Michaels - Steven Millhauser - Lorrie Moore - Craig Nova - Daniel Orozco - Mary Robison - Norman Rush - James Salter - Mona Simpson - Ali Smith - Wells Tower - Dallas Wiebe - Joy Williams

"The Paris Review" asks: who hasn't survived a tax audit, a snowstorm, a break-up, or presided over a murder?The next addictively clever Paris Review anthology is not a self-help manual; rather it is a wicked elaboration on the human effort to overcome--and instigate--trouble. Throughout these pages you will find men plagued with guilt, women burdened by history, scientists bound by passion, mothers fogged with delusion, and lovers vexed with jealousy. In the theme that encompasses every life, no protagonist--or reader!--is exempt.Among those to appear: - Annie Proulx- Andre Dubus- Norman Rush- Charles Baxter- Wells Tower- Julie Orringer- Elizabeth Gilbert- Ben Okri- Rick Bass

The fourth book in the Modern Library’s Paris Review Writers at Work series, Latin American Writers at Work is a thundering collection of interviews with some of the most important and acclaimed Latin American writers of our time. These fascinating conversations were compiled from the annals of The Paris Review and include a new, lyrical Introduction by Nobel Prize–winning author Derek Walcott.

The third installment in the Modern Library's Paris Review "Writers at Work" series, this is an all-new gathering of interviews with the most important and compelling playwrights of our time. Their singular takes on their craft, their influences, their lives, the state of contemporary theater, and the tricks of the trade create an illuminating and unparalleled record of the life of the theater itself.

"At its best,  theater is an antidote to the whiff of barbarity in the millennial air. 'My feeling is that people in a group, en masse, watching something, react differently, and perhaps more profoundly, than they do when they're alone in their living rooms,' Arthur Miller says here. In the dark, facing the stage, surrounded by others, the paying customer can let himself go; he is emboldened. The theatrical encounter allows a member of the public to think against received opinions. He can submerge himself in the extraordinary, admit his darkest, most infantile wishes, feel the pulse of the contemporary, hear the sludge of street talk turned into poetry. This enterprise can be joyous and dangerous; when the theater's game is good and tense, it is both."
--from the Introduction by John Lahr

For a half-century, "The Paris Review" has published writing and interviews from the world's most brilliant authors. To commemorate the anniversary, a breathtakingly diverse and illuminating anthology has been assembled. The greatest writers here write and speak upon the greatest subjects of our time: *Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver on "Heartbreak"*Vladimir Nabokov on SEX*Kurt Vonnegut and Susan Sontag on "War"*Jonathan Franzen on "Betrayal"*Jeffrey Eugenides and Norman Mailer on "Death"*Philip Roth on "God"Inspiring a dizzying range of thought and emotion, the collection holds a mirror to the world we live in and to the reader's own hopes, dreams, fears, and joy.

Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg; On the Road, Naked Lunch, Howl: The names and titles continue to reverberate as the Beats remain a vital source of inspiration to successive generations of readers and writers. In their Writers at Work series, The Paris Review has interviewed all the key Beats and their cousins, the Black Mountain School of experimental poets. In this new collection, they describe their art and lives, creating a unique and fascinating record of the writers and their inspirations.

Allen Ginsberg interviews Andrei Voznesensky and Amiri Baraka and is interviewed himself, alongside Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Robert Creely, Ken Kesey, and Denise Levertov. Beat Writers at Work also includes a previously unpublished interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Rick Moody, the author of Garden State, The Ice Storm, and Purple America has written a new Introduction.