A searching memoir of a life lived in the flicker of an action film, by the author of I Will Take the AnswerIn his first memoir, Ander Monson guides readers through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his ...

An exuberant, expansive cataloging of the intimate physical relationship between a reader and a bookA way to leave a trace of us, who we were or wanted to be, what we read and could imagine, what we did and what we left for you.Readers of physical books leave traces: marginalia, slips of paper, fingerprints, highlighting, inscriptions. All books have histories, and libraries are not just collections of books and databases but a medium of long-dista...

A moving and wide-ranging collection of essays by the author of Letter to a Future LoverThe idea of connection permeates I Will Take the Answer, Ander Monson’s fourth book of utterly original and intelligent essays. How is our present connected to our past and future? How do neural connections form memories, and why do we recall them when we do? And how do we connect with one another in meaningful ways across time and space?In the opening ...

An unsettling, wildly imaginative collection of storiesThe Gnome Stories focuses on characters who are loners in the truest sense; who are in the process of recovering from mental, physical, or emotional trauma; and who find solace—or at least a sense of purpose—in peculiar jobs and pursuits.A man whose wife has left him is robbed, so he decides to start doing his own breaking and entering, into his neighbors’ homes. When another man’s girlfriend i...

In his first memoir, Ander Monson guides listeners through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his own life, formed by mainstream, white, male American culture. Between scenes, Monson delves deeply into his adolescence in Michigan's Upper ...

“To read the collected essays here is to feel invited to a salon.” —Signature How We Speak to One Another is some of the most engaging evidence we’ve got that the essay is going strong. Here, essayists talk back to each other, to the work they love and the work that disquiets them, and to the very basic building blocks of what we understand “essay” to be. What’s compiled in these pages testifies to the endless flexibility, generosity, curiosity, and audacity of essays. Even more than that,...