How To Be Alone

From Jonathan Franzen, the National Book Award–winning author of The Corrections, here are 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 account 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.