William H. Gass

"A literary delight--a reading feast; a Gassian celebration--the best of the best (in more than fifty selections) from an American master of prose, chosen by Gass himself from his essays, criticism, commentary, short stories, and novels. It begins with his essays, in which Gass looks back at varying points in his writing life at those writers (from Plato, Hobbes and James, to Joyce, Beckett, Stein, and Gaddis) whose work he found inspiring ... and...

"Wyatt Gwyon forges not from larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals"- pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and the fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch- cannot even recognize. First published in 1955, this lively, witty, and labyrinthine...