When members of the National Book Critics Circle were polled to see which book they would most like to see republished, they chose Speedboat—“by far.â€� This story of a young female newspaper reporter coming of age in New York City was originally published serially in the New Yorker; it is made out of seemingly unrelated vignettes—tart observations distilled through relentless intellect—which add up to an analysis of our brittle, urban existence. It remains as fresh as when it was first published.

Author Biography: Alison Booth is Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Greatness Engendered: George Eliot and Virginia Woolf and editor of Famous Last Words: Changes in Gender and Narrative Closure. J. Paul Hunter is Professor of English Language and Literature, Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professor in the Humanities, and Director of the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Norton's own Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (1990). Kelly J. Mays is Assistant Professor of English at New Mexico State University. She frequently teaches the "Writing About Literature" course at NMSU, and prior to joining NMSU was an instructor in Harvard's expository writing program.