Here is New York

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"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." So begins E.B. White's classic meditation on that noisiest, most public of American cities. Written during the summer of 1948, well after the author and editor had taken up permanent residence in Maine, Here Is New York is a fond glance back at the city of his youth, when White was one of the "young worshipful beginners" who give New York its passionate character. It's also a tribute to the sheer implausibility of the place--the tangled infrastructure, the teeming humanity, the dearth of air and light. Much has changed since White wrote this essay, yet in a city "both changeless and changing" there are things here that will doubtless ring equally true 100 years from now. To wit, "New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience--if they did they would live elsewhere."

Anyone who's ever cherished his essays--or even Charlotte's Web--knows that White is the most elegant of all possible stylists. There's not a sentence here that does not make itself felt right down to the reader's very bones. What would the author make of Giuliani's New York? Or of Times Square, Disney-style? It's hard to say for sure. But not even Planet Hollywood could ruin White's abiding sense of wonder: "The city is like poetry: it compresses all life ... into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines." This lovely new edition marks the 100th anniversary of E.B. White's birth--cause for celebration indeed. --Mary Park

Book Description

Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E.B. White's stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times has named Here is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and The New Yorker calls it "the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.

Customer Reviews:

Here Is New York by E. B. White.......2007-02-23

Anything by E. B. White is fine - he must have been quite young when he wrote this but I enjoyed reading it and getting a sense of what New York was like at that time - some of it is still true but much has changed.

A Love Letter to New York City.......2006-04-24

HERE IS NEW YORK is a truly spectacular 1948 essay that originally appeared in Holiday magazine. Written by E.B. White and named one of the ten best books ever written about New York, this is a quick read that will leave you years later savoring White's timeless observations.

Writing in a hotel room during a sweltering heat wave, White takes the reader through the essence of New York City and its eight million inhabitants who he notes roughly fall into three groups: the natives, the commuters and the transplants.

Warning that "no one should come to New York unless he is willing to be lucky," White lovingly explains how the city is more a collection of thousands of small neighborhoods that implausibly operate independently of each other, completely oblivious to what is occurring only a few blocks away.

Though it was written almost 60 years ago, HERE IS NEW YORK is just as accurate today as the moment it was written. Yes, the city has changed but the basic structure of life in New York remains the same.

Overall HERE IS NEW YORK is a very positive book that will leave everyone feeling welcome and needed in America's biggest city. But eerily the book presciently warns that "a single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal passages, cremate the millions."

Though it was tough to read that passage right after 9/11 as I did, I still whole heartedly recommend HERE IS NEW YORK to anyone who lives in New York, commutes to and from there, or has just moved there and is now, as White observed, generating "enough heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company."

- Regina McMenamin

Style, Truth, Prescience.......2005-12-11

Early to a party, I was looking at a friend's bookcase and pulled this slim volume from a shelf. After reading the first sentence, I knew I had to have it.

Originally published in 1949, E.B. White, who no longer lived in New York City, captured the soul and spirit of the place. Nothing has changed. At the time, the United Nations building was under construction, and the bombing of London was fresh in his mind. He ends the book with a vision that perfectly balances hope with danger, in words prescient of September 11 - I re-read those paragraphs on every anniversary, it has become my ritual.

But what originally drew me to the book is not only the truth and insight of White, but his style, his felicity of expression. The author of "The Elements of Style" certainly knew the rules, and knew when to break them, as well. The second paragraph ends with a run-on sentence 198 words long, a thrilling joy ride which itself demonstrates how impossible it is to capture, in prose, the enormity and importance of this city.

I agree with Russell Baker, this is "the finest portrait ever painted of the city."

Small Treasure.......2005-10-19

A tightly written prose essay. An appreciation of the city that was and is. Memories and images of things past and things enduring. The city of E.B. White. If you live her, love her or even dislike her this memoir will evoke strong recollections.
Short, incisive, majestic. A small treasure for those who love the great cities of the world.

A swell little essay.......2005-08-29

I bought a 1949 first edition of this and just loved holding the 4"x6" (or thereabouts) gem in my hands. It has a sepia "Fairchild Aerial Surveys" image of Manhattan on the cover, as well as blurbs calling E.B. White "swell" and "meaty" and "original, all wool and a yard wide." I'm just starting to learn that part of the pleasure of a book, occasionally, is its packaging - and this was a swell example. I barely know what to add to the other comments here about White's writings. If you know him only through his three beautifully crafted childrens' books, this is one place to start with his essays. Here is New York was originally written for Holiday magazine. You can read the essay (and, consequently, this book) in one sitting. The ideas here are admittedly romantic and, from my twenty-first-century perspective, sometimes a tad cloying. That said, White's sentences always deliver spare, direct ideas. He is truly a joy to read. If you love Manhattan as I do, you'll want to have this as part of your library, if only to be reminded every once in awhile that someone voiced your own feelings 60 years ago.

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read it again--and again
Writings from The New Yorker by E. B. White
eclectic selection of his writings
Here's proof E. B. White had to work for a living.
An odd collection of White's mediocre, dated, small pieces

Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060921234
Release Date: 2006-11-07

Amazon.com

Three years after E. B. White's death, Rebecca Dale discovered a cache of his New Yorker writings that had yet to be collected. There's certainly nothing mediocre about these 161 pieces, which range from nature vignettes (a New York City sparrow extols urban life) to musings on language, business, and liberty. White's 1953 fantasia of visiting Thoreau's Walden Pond with Joseph McCarthy is peerless. "Wait a minute!" the senator realizes. "This man was Communist-inspired. That accounts for his sour attitude about housing--" The satire is strong, but so is the celebration. A short piece on a skating fest ends: "Ice is an odd substance to have at last freed the body in its persistent attempt to catch up with the spirit." And speaking of which, in "Fred On Space" White asks his dead dachshund how he feels about the first dog launched by the Russians. Fred is far from impressed: "The excuse you men give is that you must continually add to the store of human knowledge--a store that already resembles a supermarket and is beginning to hypnotize the customers."

Book Description

A delightful, witty, spirited collection of short pieces and essays by the inimitable E. B. White.

Customer Reviews:

read it again--and again.......2007-05-06

I say, and not for the first time or after reading his first book (I've read them all, again and again) that anyone who wants to learn to write contemporary English as it should be written should close himself in a room with EB White for as long as it takes. He or she might even learn to be a better person from the example.

Writings from The New Yorker by E. B. White.......2007-02-23

I intend to have the very first item in this read at my memorial service - which I hope won't be soon! Some of this was slightly dated, but always good reading. He had such a unique take on his world and such a down-to-earth way of looking at the goings-on around him.

eclectic selection of his writings.......2006-07-16

This book is perfect for the business traveller. It is a quick read in part because the pieces are brief, and in part because of E.B. White's flawless command of the English language. The compilers of this anthology may not have a key to E.B. White's soul, as other reviewers expected, but why should that matter?

Here's proof E. B. White had to work for a living........2000-05-26

"Writings from the New Yorker" is a poorly organized commercial re-packaging of E. B. White snippets banged-out under the pressures of deadlines in the work-a-day world. In spite of my respect for the man and my love of his more carefully crafted writings, this book sputtered and stalled as I read along.

But E. B. White does manage to shine through this collection in spite of its hodge-podginess and your reward for plowing through it will be the discovery of a gem here and there.

Were he still with us, White himself would likely have a field day editing this book, tossing out stuff. For one thing, his editors made him use "we" instead of "I" in these unsigned pieces which he objected to and which makes you wonder just how "handcuffed" he was in other unspoken ways as he wrote them.

If you're an E. B. White groupie who simply must read everything White has ever written, buy this book. Otherwise--save your money.

An odd collection of White's mediocre, dated, small pieces.......1999-07-17

I can't think of a book or collection of EB White's writing to which I wouldn't give high praise. Here, the writing is good (of course, it always is) but that the collection was put together by someone not in the writer's family or intimate (editorial) circle may explain why it seems a bit void of that quintessential EB White spirit. Understand, these are not essays or letters. These, for the most part, are very short pieces, most of which ran in The New Yorker as short, witty fillers or, as that genteel set liked to refer to them, "occasionals." Some, because they were written many decades ago ('30s and '40s) are dated. Some references or phrases are left unexplained, leaving this reader stumped. If you want to read classic EB White, aside form his children's classics, I recommend his "Essays" and "Letters," and "The Second Tree from the Corner." THESE are classics. This collection, on the other hand, demonstrates that, while EB White was always a top-notch writer, even the best have their mediocre days.

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A Charming Timely Classic
A simpler time...
A war-time celebration of the American Experiment
The Window Into White's Soul
More satisfying than banana pudding.

One Man's Meat
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Tilbury House Publishers
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0884481921

Book Description

NonfictionLarge Print EditionIn print for fifty-five years, One Mans Meat continues to delight readers with E.B. Whites witty, succinct observations on daily life at a Maine saltwater farm. Too personal for an almanac, too sophisticated for a domestic history, and too funny and self-doubting for a literary journal, One Mans Meat can best be described as a primer of a countrymans lessons a timeless recounting of experience that will never go out of style.

Customer Reviews:

A Charming Timely Classic.......2007-05-08

For the grown ups who enjoyed reading Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little to their kids. This is the best clearist writing by the master of the short essay. He gives us pride in the values he holds and lives. A national treasure.

A simpler time..........2004-06-09

Once upon a time i belonged to a book club. This was one of our choices. I have been trying to pull out fragments of memory. What i recall most fondly is that E.B. White's observations were tinted with a certain innocence. Why did we become so jaded? The last 50 years have brought along a heightened level of cynicism, and it was refreshing to read a grown man's slightly naïve comments.

At the same time, after a while I became a bit bored with the simplistic remarks of life in the country. My own shortcoming, not the book's.

A war-time celebration of the American Experiment.......2002-10-06

This collection of essays is such a fine book; it deserves a much better commentary than it currently has here. And given the times we live in, its subject matter is particularly timely for American readers -- the period of history leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the early years of the war effort -- all told from the point of view of a thoughtful writer on a small farm in Maine.

White had moved there with his wife and young son from New York, where he'd been writing for The New Yorker, and took up country living, turning his attention to the annual round of the seasons, farm work, the nearby seaside, and the company of independent rural people. Most of the essays in this collection were written and published monthly in Harpers from July 1938 to January 1943. In them, there is White's awareness of the ominous threat of fascism emerging in Europe, as well as the vulnerability that Americans felt as they found themselves facing prolonged armed conflict with powerful enemies. These were dark days, and they provide a constant undertone in these otherwise upbeat essays about rural and small-town life.

And they are upbeat, celebrating the pleasures and gentle ironies of daily life with a few side trips into the world beyond -- the birth of a lamb, paying taxes, farm dogs, hay fever, raising chickens, Sunday mornings, radio broadcasts, civil defense drills, a visit to Walden pond, a day at the World's Fair, and unrealistic Hollywood portrayals of the pastoral. There is also here his famous essay "Once More to the Lake."

In many ways, the world he writes about is gone forever. But it's a world whose spirit remains at the heart of the national identity -- participatory democracy, individualism, citizenship, self-discovery, and self-reliance. Reading these essays, while they are often about seemingly trivial matters, you sense White's deepening faith in the American Experiment -- a belief in America as a work in progress.

And, of course, there is the famous White style, both simple and elegant. Its language, sentence structure, and movement of thought convey both sharpness of mind and generosity of spirit, in a manner that looks and sounds easy, but it is very hard to imitate. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the WWII homefront, the essay as a literary form, and a curiosity about rural life before farm subsidies and agribusiness.

The Window Into White's Soul.......1998-12-11

Understanding E.B. White is not an easy task. He was a reserved man, very straightforward in his writing and simple in nature. However, White found that he was able to express himself with his writing, and none of his books is a more direct window into his soul than "One Man's Meat." Written over the course of White's later years of living on a Maine farm, this book contains witty accounts of geographic novelty, reminiscences on the promise of youth, and powerful insights into the little things in life that can make all the difference. No reader of E.B. White can gain a full knowledge of what the man was all about without having thoroughly digested this book.

More satisfying than banana pudding........1998-10-31

For one who aspires to write well--the most delicious book I've ever read. The words "witty" and "sharp" come to mind, but poorly describe White and his work. Maybe, no words do with any degree of accuracy and right praise.

Essays of E. B. White (Perennial Classics)

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Wonderful
The world of E.B. White
Word genius
It makes you feel good
Masterful and wonderful and delightful

Essays of E. B. White (Perennial Classics)
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060932236
Release Date: 2006-10-03

Book Description

The classic collection by one of the greatest essayists of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful.......2007-05-17

This is such a marvelous book.

The sentences are simply perfect and the sense of wonder he creates makes this a text you will want to go back to over and over. A great gift for any literate person in your life.

Really great.

The world of E.B. White.......2005-08-08

What do you expect of tomorrow? "THE WORLD OF TOMORROW", perhaps the best known essay among his essay collactiond,"Essa of E.B. White". It contains thirty other essays organozed into seven sections.

The scene of "THE WORLD OF TOMORROW" is in New York in May 1939. White mentions "Tomorrow" remembering the World's Fair held there. The Fair's theme was also "THE WORLD OF TOMORROW", and there were the white ball and spire named the Tylon and Perisphere which were two landmark monumental buildings in the fair. Actually White had to visit there with a box of Kleenex...

At first, the road to the World's Fair is refered as the road to "Tomorrow". Through the street, he arrived at "the very threshold of Tomorrow". At the Fair, he made a few notes about what you may expext of tomorrow--In tomorrow, most sounds aren't these themselves, and we can't tallk back.

The New York World's Fair was filled with man's dream, and it's held 66 years ago! The more I read this book, the more I can be into White's world. His way to use metaphor is brilliant, and it makes me feel more comfortable. So, I really recommend you not only this essay but also his another collection.

Word genius.......2005-07-29

Twenty two of the essays appeared in THE NEW YORKER. White had candor. His piece on the death of his pig is masterful. He examined his own feelings and community reaction. The role of his dachshund, Fred, is described amusingly. It is no wonder White wrote so winningly for children.

In 1954 when he had no television he was looked upon as an eccentric. During Hurricane Edna radio worked people up to an incredible state of alarm. It seemed that no wick was available for the Whites' kerosene lamp. White has some gentle fun with mistakes of the exhausted radio announcers. Battered down was said instead of battened down, and unindated for inundated. There are two stages in the country of a storm. There is the period when phones and lights are still going, and then there is the stage when these cease to work. The storm itself did not seem long in comparison to the radio vigil.

He came to feel that living in New England in the winter was a full time job in itself. Another use of his time was having an enemy, the fox. Darkness was more insistent than the cold. Farming, even the kind pursued by the author, is infinitely complex. When the snow arrived early in 1971 White was cut short. The usual things were not done. It got so there was no place to put the snow after it was plowed.

In the city section of the essays it is noted that New York City bestows the gift of loneliness and privacy. In 1939 there were eight million people in the five boroughs. In Florida it appears that the sun and the lizard maintain the same schedule. The tiny spots of the fiddler crab's body enlarge during the daytime hours. To have a pointsettia plant at Christmastime in
Florida seems faintly ridiculous. Pointsettias bloom naturally in the yards. A small chameleon arrives with the Whites' tropical substitute for a Christmas tree much to Mrs. White's delight.

In 1923 the author kept a diary of his trip to Alaska. A ship, docking at Seattle, was to go on a journey for forty days. He had only forty dollars, enough to traverse the inner passage to Skagway, and so he went. The Buford, for some of the passengers, became a high class floating jail because although food and scenery were good, there was no escape. Youthful, White absorbed the vast scene of Alaska. This was a trip promoted by the Chamber of Commerce, but White's roommate was another odd man to the enterprise, a Laplander. He was a reindeer butcher, going to a job in Nome. When the boat reached Skagway White's ticket ran out. The captain came up with the idea of putting him on as a night saloonsman. His metamorphosis took the passengers by surprise.

WALDEN is not a well-liked book among White's acquaintances. Thoreau was torn by two desires, to enjoy the world and to set the world straight. He tended to write in sentences, and WALDEN is a collection of certified sentences. I have tried to give the prospective reader some notion of the enjoyment to be obtained from reading White's essays.

It makes you feel good.......2005-03-21

E.B. White is able to convey the most pure and simple honesty through his written word. He writes about dozens of different topics in this collection and most of them I have no reason to relate to, but I do.

White's prose has the ability to touch you even when he's talking about tending to a sick pig on his farm. Something I'm willing to assume most people have never done. But White uses his reasoning and his emotions to carry you through the story so by the end it doesn't matter what happened, but why it happened and how it felt.

I recommend "Good-Bye to Forty-Eighth Street," "Once More to the Lake," and "Bedfellows."

Masterful and wonderful and delightful.......2003-06-13

Too bad there is/was only one E. B. White; too bad he couldn't have lived for ever. He will always remain as one of the best American essayists while at the same time continuing to earn acclaim for several other books that will always stay in print: childhood classics Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, as well as the newer edition of Elements of Style.
But his essays! Oh, they are so good, so rambling and thoughtful and gently pointed, many humorous while still making a deep and important impression. Anyone who strives to write good prose must read these essays to find out how a master did it and made it look easy. The first one in this volume, Death of a Pig, could serve as a lesson in How to Write.

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Gem of a Book
Take a tour of the Nile, its people and their Gods.

Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History
J. E. Manchip White
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486225488

Book Description

This fascinating account of ancient Egypt presents predynastic civilization through Ptolemies: social and political structure, daily life, international relations, religion and cult of the dead, arts and crafts, science and medicine, sacred writing, and much more. Includes full reference to recent excavations. Features 48 plates.

Customer Reviews:

Gem of a Book.......2005-11-17

I loved this book. It was the first book I bought on ancient Egyptian culture and I think it was the best choice I could possibly make. Jammed packed with information and illustrations. It's certainly worth owning this gem.

Take a tour of the Nile, its people and their Gods........1999-06-22

This is an informative and comprehensive introduction to Egyptology. Starting with an analysis of the Nile and how this majestic river is pivotal to understanding this ancient culture, White brings us through a descriptive tour of each of the important contributors to Ancient Egyptian culture; the Pharoh, the Priest, the Architect, the Craftsman and the commonly disregarded peasant. This book, albeit occasionally too factual, has a wealth of information included in its mere 200 pages. The three historical chapters are a welcome synthesis to all of the factual data that was presented earlier. The fold-out summary of the major Pharohs, architectural advances and other contemporary cultures is great for keeping all of the important dates, places and people straight. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the wonders of Egypt.

Farewell to Model T and From Sea to Shining Sea

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Attention getter for "T" owners
The Quintessential American Writer
White is good, editing is not

Farewell to Model T and From Sea to Shining Sea
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Little Bookroom
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1892145219
Release Date: 2003-05-31

Book Description

In 1922, just out of college and at loose ends, E. B. White set off across America in his Model T. He left his map at home, but packed his typewriter and dictionary—his true destination, he tells us, was the world of letters. Along the way, he also discovered America:

"My own vision of the land—my own discovery of it—was shaped, more than by any other instrument, by a Model T Ford...a slow-motion roadster of miraculous design—strong, tremulous, and tireless, from sea to shining sea."

White first wrote about the flivver in "Farewell to Model T," which appeared in the New Yorker in 1936. Rich in comic descriptions of the T's many eccentricities and the absurd demands it put on its devoted owners, this was the first of White's essays to bring him fame. It is here published for the first time with "From Sea to Shining Sea," in which he conjures the backroads and main streets of an unspoiled America. Together, these essays are an affectionate tribute to the car that holds a mythic place in the American imagination.

Customer Reviews:

Attention getter for "T" owners.......2007-03-08

I bought this for my husband for Valentine's since he owns a Model T. He said he really enjoyed reading it. He had heard about the book a while back but had never read it until now. It must have been good for him to read it instead of his car magazines!

The Quintessential American Writer.......2007-01-10

If you are only familiar with E.B.White from his children's books, this pair of essays is a great way to treat yourself to the genius of his beautifully simple yet brilliant essays. Several others have been published in small book form in recent years, notably This Is New York. Find out why Mr. White was the mainstay of The New Yorker for 50 years. Elements of Style is still being taught in high schools and colleges today, despite a plethora of new and more elaborate books on writing. He is the master!

White is good, editing is not.......2006-10-21

This edition ranks only a "3" -- not because of any flaw in E. B. White's prose, but because it lacks appropriate editing. The essay "Farewell to Model T" was not solely written by White, but this fact is found on Google, not in the book. A few minutes to write a brief introduction would have been a better editorial choice.

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The Second Tree from the Corner
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060915161

E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist

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E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist
Robert L., Jr. Root
Manufacturer: University Of Iowa Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

In E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist, Robert Root traces the literary career of the best-known and most widely admired American essayist of the twentieth century.

Root explores the milieu in which White began writing the Notes and Comments section of the New Yorker and puts in perspective the influence of popular "columists" like Don Marquis and Christopher Morley on the tone and form of White's work as a "paragrapher." He examines White's persistent disaffection with the demands and limitations inherent in his Comment pieces for the New Yorker and his experiences as a columnist for Harper's Magazine, where his One Man's Meat feature produced his most enduring essay, Once More to the Lake, and took the segmented column form to new levels of accomplishment. Drawing on White's manuscripts, Root's literary analysis of early drafts demonstrates how unique White's essays were.

E. B. White greatly expanded the limits of literary nonfiction and in the process introduced elements and methods that helped produce the contemporary essay. From Root's research we receive new insights into the process by which White created his essays and how he was influenced--and often constrained--by particular literary forms and by the limitations of the circumstances in which he wrote them. White was famous for his habit of "writing by ear," and he believed in "writing a thing first and thinking about it afterward," work habits that led to some of the most memorable American literary essays in the twentieth century.

E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist is the most detailed study to date of White as an essayist and a significant contribution to the literature examining writers at work.

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Essays of E. B. White
E.B. White
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MHIPIK

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Great collection of letters. Always inspires me to write.

Transparent writing at its best

Letters of E. B. White
E. B. White
Manufacturer: Borgo Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Essays of E. B. White (Perennial Classics)

E.B. White: A Biography

Here is New York

Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

One Man's Meat

ASIN: 0809590638

Customer Reviews:

Great collection of letters. Always inspires me to write........1997-11-07

E.B. White was a well known writer for The New Yorker, but I think his real genius was in writing letters to friends and family. He wrote about the ordinary and made it more than interesting, but fun. (His description of how to set up your room when admitted to the hospital is hysterical!) But he also wrote about hard times in life, his wife's illness, his own aging, death of friends and family. He wrote with honesty, clarity, and gusto. Letter writing (and READING a letter also) should never be a chore. Reading White's letters never is. I keep this book on the nightstand by my bed.

Transparent writing at its best.......1997-06-19

Transparent writing consists of prose that doesn't tell; it is prose that shows. E. B. White is the master of this. His prose takes you where he wants you to be and, once there, shows you the sights, lets you smell the aromas and hear the sounds. A modest man, E. B. White claims often that writing for him is difficult and painful. Yet this collection of letters shows that from the beginning, Elwyn Brooks White had an innate ability to write simply, clearly, and charmingly. Whether he is thanking young readers for compliments, advising aspiring writers on writing, or berating a famous author for endorsing a product, he is witty, clear, and compassionate. Reading these letters you will think, cry, laugh, and even wince, but you will not frown in confusion as you wonder what the writer is trying to say. As a very beneficial side effect, reading E. B. White will often improve your own writing. Am I biased? You bet! Years of reading the stilted, jargon-laced writing of business, and the contrived, artificial efforts at "style" of many authors, reading anything by E. B. White is like talking to your best friend.

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