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 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 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 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

Pages 17 through 19 of The Balloonists: My father told us stores every night about strange little animals that came out in the dark. When my father was away, my mother read us fairy tales that always ended in