From Jonathan Franzen, the National Book Award–winning author of The Corrections, come 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 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.