To the Editor: In her essay "Holding the Bag in Italy" (Sept . 15, Madeline Drexler quotes Rory Bruce, the manager of Babington's tearoom, who said: "A lot of English people don't understand tea anymore.
It was rumoured that he had extended his coffee mug to the author of a disappointing essay, held his gaze, daring him to act, and when he didn't, let it smash on the floor.
But this book, or collection of essays held together by time and place, draws out the unknowability in the revolution.
"Lost in Language and Sound," which Ms. Shange adapted from a collection of her essays, represents her next step back into the world — an experiment to see if the essays held together dramatically, and to test the interest of producers.
And Christopher Abbott, the young actor playing Ronnie (the same role Stiller first essayed) holds the audience spellbound with his second act monologue.
The title essay of Rothbard's 1974 book Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays held, "Equality is not in the natural order of things, and the crusade to make everyone equal in every respect (except before the law) is certain to have disastrous consequences".
The essay miscellany, held together not by any overriding theme but by sheer authorial style and personality, was formerly one of the glories of belletristic nonfiction, though it has become rare for publishers today to take the commercial risk of putting out such a collection.
The answer to the angry Amazon reviewer who mangles sentences in an effort to berate or praise an author is the perfectly constructed old-fashioned essay that holds within its well-formed sentences and graceful rhetoric the values it protects and projects.
When Emily and Eli find themselves in a serious marital storm, she enters an essay contest held in honor of that classic book's 50th anniversary edition: winners, preferably a couple in trouble, get a weekend upstate with the reclusive author, and access to his sagacity.
The innovations range from creating high schools that offer an opportunity to take college courses for credit, to devoting senior English classes to writing college application essays, and holding parties to celebrate students who complete them.
