Status Updates From The Norton Book of Personal...

Amy Tan - Mother Tan: I like Amy Tan.

Shelby Steele - On Being Black and Middle Class: The author wrote about how being black was a contradiction to being middle class, and to be black was to be a victim.

"To move beyond the victim-focused black identity we must learn to make a difficult but crucial distinction: between actual victimization, which we must resist with every resource, and identification with the victim's status."

Vicki Hearne - Oyez a Beaumont: The author is clearly pissed off at the writer of an article, for suggesting that all pets are replaceable and if your dog die, you should buy another one, same breed, right away.

Barry Lopez - Grown Men: Again, death. The author talked about three men who were like grandfathers to him, and who had taught him things. Their passing, he felt, was a great loss to the world.

Scott Russell Sanders - The Inheritance of Tools: Following his father's death, from whom he learned carpentry, the author reminisced about the tools he double inherited from his grandfather.

Annie Dillard - Weasel: Apparently, a man shot an eagle and when he examined its corpse, there was the skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to its throat. Bite like a weasel, and never let go, should be a saying.

Richard Rodriquez - Going Home Again: To be an ethnic with Western education and thus, Western mind

Nancy Mairs - Ron Her Son: Mairs and her husband fostered Ron - first he stayed with them only on weekends, but after his father rejected him, they took him in full time. The three years he was with them was difficult. But Ron joined the Navy and he seemed to have turned out fine. The essay takes place during their reunion, so it didn't mention that Ron was later fatally shot in the head, his killer still at large.

Phyllis Rose - Tools of Torture: An Essay on Beauty and Pain

Bruce Chatwin - The Bey: The Bey was an elderly and anachronistic man, a remnant of the Ottoman Empire, whom Chatwin got acquainted with while working as a porter at the Sotheby's.

Joseph Epstein - I Like a Gershwin Tune: Epstein wrote about the time, when he was young, when music was suffused every aspect of life of the American middle class. His sense of humour I like, but music isn't my thing, so a large part of this flew over my head.

Joan Didion - On Keeping a Notebook.

Oliver Sacks - The Bull on the Mountain: Sacks came across a bull while climbing the mountain and fell down, breaking, ruining his leg. He then laboriously climbed back down.

V. S. Naipaul - In the Middle of the Journey

John Gregory Dunne - Quintana: Quintana was Dunne's daughter. She was adopted. And Dunne wrote, probably to deal with when she decided to find her biological mother, if she ever did.

Jeremy Bernstein - Take the "A" Train: Bernstein's dip into jazz and his acquaintanceship with jazz artists like Duke Ellington.

Dan Jacobson - The Vanishing Act: Childless as I am, I can't help but be saddened with how quickly my nephew and nieces grow up. Every time I see them, they're a bit taller, have picked up a new trick. And the 'they' who are gone, are gone forever. Do parents feel this loss too, or are they too busy and joyful, enjoying the moments, and like the writer, only feel it when their children are teenagers and grown adults?

Jean Hollander - Cops and Writers: Hollander gives an interesting account about teaching literature and writing to cops, as part of their adult education programs. The insight of men experienced and knowledgeable about the darker side of human nature is intriguing, compared to young college students who know little about the real world.

Cynthia Ozick - The Lesson of the Master: An essay which should be read by all aspiring writers. It seems obvious, but I think many writers don't realise fully that the great, famous authors they admire don't just write masterpieces from the moment they're born. Those authors were also once young, once learning. And it's normal to be frustrated now, because it's a part of the learning process.

Flannery O'Connor - The King of the Birds: An essay about peacock that's hugely entertaining.

L. Rust Hill - How to Eat an Ice-Cream Cone: A grown man being a little too obsessive about ice cream cones. This is what I love about personal essays -- that it doesn't only deal with serious issues like race relations or politics, but also about inanely mundane thing. Maybe it's the "wrong" thing to be concerned about, but heck it, raising voices about the "right" things haven't made my life any less miserable.

James Baldwin - A Stranger in the Village: For some reasons, Baldwin went to work at an isolated Swiss village where everyone was white and had never seen a black person. And he related this to the status and experience of being black in America.

Truman Capote - Tangier: I wish Capote could have written a travel memoir.

William Zinsser - Jury Duty: Are juries better/preferable to a judge?

Doris Lessing - My Father: Lessing's father changed after World War I, and she never knew the man from before.

Ralph Ellison - Living with Music: Despite growing up with music and being a terror upon his neighbourhood with it, Ellison gave up music to pursue writing. Only to be reacquainted after being assailed from all directions in his current neighbourhood.

Lewis Thomas - Notes on Punctuation

Barbara Tuchman - An Author's Mail: Tuchman wrote about the types of letter she received as an author, from those begging for help (for some reasons), to those who gave anecdotal account after having been at a historic scene; from those who praised her to high heaven to those who condemned and crititicised her works.

Eudora Welty - The Little Store: A little corner store where Welty was sent for errands.