Eula Biss is the author of The Balloonists and Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays, which won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. She teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University and is co-editor of Essay Press.

Eula Biss is the author of The Balloonists and Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays, which won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. She teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University and is co-editor of Essay Press.

Pages 3 through 11 of Notes from No Man’s Land: Time and Distance Overcome “Of what use is such an invention?” the New York World asked shortly after Alexander Graham Bell first demonstrated his telephone in 1876.

Pages 3 through 11 of On Immunity: THE FIRST STORY I EVER HEARD about immunity was told to me by my father, a doctor, when I was very young. It was the myth of Achilles, whose mother tried to make him immortal. She burned away …

Pages 3 through 9 of Having and Being Had: Isn’t It Good? We’re on our way home from a furniture store, again. What does it say about capitalism, John asks, that we have money and want to spend it but we can’t find anything worth