Compiles a selection of the best literary essays of the year 1989 which were originally published in American periodicals.

Foreword /Robert Atwan -- Introduction : An Apprentice / Geoffrey Wolff -- Playing Chess with Arthur Koestler / Julian Barnes -- A Snapping Turtle in June / Franklin Burroughs -- Think About It / Frank Conroy -- Insider Baseball / Joan Didion -- Schedules / Annie Dillard -- The Muses Are Heard / Stanley Elkin -- Confessions of a Low Roller / Joseph Epstein -- Accommodations / Richard Ford -- Parade March from "That Creaturely World" / Albert Goldbarth -- Bones / Paul Gruchow -- On Not Knowing the Half of It : Homage to Telegraphist Jacobs / Christopher Hitchens -- Heaven and Nature / Edward Hoagland -- Why Stop? / Mary Hood -- Who Owns the West? / William Kittredge -- Falling into Life / Leonard Kriegel -- Strawberries Under Ice / David Quammen -- Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy / Judy Ruiz -- On Being Black and Middle Class / Shelby Steele -- Keeping the Future at Bay / Robert Stone -- The Brave Tailors of Maida / Gay Talese -- Mystery in a Soviet Library / Victor Zaslavsky -- Biographical Notes -- Notable Essays of 1988.