A now classic memoir, described by Doris Grumbach as 'unusually elegant and meditative,' once more available with an updated afterword by the author. Golden Prague seemed mostly gray when Patricia Hampl first went there in quest of he...

Just out of college, Patricia Hampl was mesmerized by a Matisse painting in the Art Institute of Chicago: an aloof woman gazing at goldfish in a bowl, a Moroccan screen behind her. In Blue Arabesque, Hampl explores the allure of this ...

During the long farewell of her mother's dying, Patricia Hampl revisits her midwestern girlhood.Daughter of a debonair Czech father, whose floral work gave him entree to St. Paul society, and a distrustful Irishwoman with anuncanny ab...

"A sharp and unconventional book — a swirl of memoir, travelogue and biography of some of history's champion day-dreamers." —Maureen Corrigan, "Fresh Air"A spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and da...