What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation.

Raging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Woods takes the reader through the basic elements of the art of fiction, step-by-step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.

A new, far-ranging collection of essays from “the strongest…literary critic we have.” (New York Review of Books)

Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, and How Fiction Works–books that established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation–The Fun Stuff confirms Wood’s preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of the contemporary novel. In twenty-five passionate, sparkling dispatches–which range over such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Edmund Wilson, and Mikhail Lermontov–Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, and Aleksandar Hemon.

Included in The Fun Stuff is the title essay on Keith Moon and the lost joys of drumming–which was a finalist for last year’s National Magazine Awards–as well as Wood’s essay on George Orwell, which Christopher Hitchens selected for The Best American Essays 2010. The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about contemporary literature.

New Yorker book critic and award-winning author James Wood delivers an audiobook about a family struggling to connect with one another and find meaning in their own lives.

In the years since his daughter Vanessa moved to America to become a professor of philosophy, Alan Querry has never been to visit. He has been too busy at home in northern England, holding together his business as a successful property developer. His younger daughter, Helen–a music executive in London–hasn’t gone, either, and the two sisters, close but competitive, have never quite recovered from their parents’ bitter divorce and the early death of their mother. But when Vanessa’s new boyfriend sends word that she has fallen into a severe depression and that he’s worried for her safety, Alan and Helen fly to New York and take the train to Saratoga Springs.

Over the course of six wintry days in upstate New York, the Querry family begins to struggle with the questions that animate this profound and searching novel: Why do some people find living so much harder than others? Is happiness a skill that might be learned or a cruel accident of birth? Is reflection conducive to happiness or an obstacle to it? If, as a favorite philosopher of Helen’s puts it, “the only serious enterprise is living,” how should we live? Rich in subtle human insight, full of poignant and often funny portraits, and vivid with a sense of place, James Wood’s Upstate is a powerful, intense, beautiful audiobook.