This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In this witty, wide-ranging collection of essays, Solomon Eagle appears as a sharp-eyed, amused observer of books, readers, politics, language, and literary pretension. The opening "Who's Who" turns a reference book into a comic addiction, tracing the narrator's delight in obscure facts and his guilty invention of a false American identity so elaborate it nearly becomes a second life. From there, the essays ...