As an editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker during his 60-year career, Robert Gottlieb has formed perceptive opinions on a wide variety of cultural disciplines. Enthusiastic and unpretentious, these 53 essays explore literature (Thomas Wolfe, Dorothy Parker, Wilkie Collins), music (Leonard Bernstein, Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra), and film (Tokyo Story, Jane Eyre). Gottlieb is also a connoisseur of dance, and celebrates Martha Graham, Twyla Tharp, Merce Cunningham, and George Balanchine.