In THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, Joan Didion writes an account of her life since the 2003 death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Didion's grief was profound and debilitating; she and Dunne had been married for nearly 40 years, duri...

In a collection of concise autobiographical essays, the renowned novelist offers his views on his own life, from growing up during the Great Depression to his fame as a writer, as well as his reflections on art, politics, and everyday...

One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as th...

What is the price of brilliance? Why are so many creative geniuses also ruinously self-destructive? From Caravaggio to Jackson Pollack, from Arthur Rimbaud to Jack Kerouac, from Charlie Parker to Janis Joplin, to Kurt Cobain, and on a...