These precious days: essays

Introduction: essays don't die

Three fathers

First Thanksgiving

The Paris tattoo

My year of no shopping

The worthless servant

How to practice

To the doghouse

Eudora Welty, an introduction

Flight plan

How knitting saved my life. Twice.

Tavia

There are no children here

A paper ticket is good for one year

The moment nothing changed

The nightstand

A talk to the Association of Graduate School Deans in the Humanities

Cover stories

Reading Kate DiCamillo

Sisters

These precious days

Two more things I want to say about my father

What the American Academy of Arts and Letters taught me about death

Epilogue: a day at the beach.