Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker (Modern Library (Paperback))

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 the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the twenties and thirties, such as Henry Luce and Isadora Duncan, and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Richard Pryor, this collection of New Yorker Profiles presents readers with a portrait gallery of some of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. These Profiles are literary-journalistic investigations into character and accomplishment, motive and madness, beauty and ugliness, and are unrivalled in their range, their variety of style, and their embrace of humanity.

Including these twenty-eight profiles:

€œMr. Hunter€s Grave€ by Joseph Mitchell
€œSecrets of the Magus€ by Mark Singer
€œIsadora€ by Janet Flanner
€œThe Soloist€ by Joan Acocella
€œTime . . . Fortune . . . Life . . . Luce€ by Walcott Gibbs
€œNobody Better, Better Than Nobody€ by Ian Frazier
€œThe Mountains of Pi€ by Richard Preston
€œCovering the Cops€ by Calvin Trillin
€œTravels in Georgia€ by John McPhee
€œThe Man Who Walks on Air€ by Calvin Tomkins
€œA House on Gramercy Park€ by Geoffrey Hellman
€œHow Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?€ by Lillian Ross
€œThe Education of a Prince€ by Alva Johnston
€œWhite Like Me€ by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
€œWunderkind€ by A. J. Liebling
€œFifteen Years of The Salto Mortale€ by Kenneth Tynan
€œThe Duke in His Domain€ by Truman Capote
€œA Pryor Love€ by Hilton Als
€œGone for Good€ by Roger Angell
€œLady with a Pencil€ by Nancy Franklin
€œDealing with Roseanne€ by John Lahr
€œThe Coolhunt€ by Malcolm Gladwell
€œMan Goes to See a Doctor€ by Adam Gopnik
€œShow Dog€ by Susan Orlean
€œForty-One False Starts€ by Janet Malcolm
€œThe Redemption€ by Nicholas Lemann
€œGore Without a Script€ by Nicholas Lemann
€œDelta Nights€ by Bill Buford