"[This book] is a collaborative study of literary tone, a notoriously challenging and slippery topic for criticism. Both granular and global, infusing a text with feeling, tone is so difficult to pin down that responses to it often take the vague form of "I know it when I see it." In Tone, a cooperative authorial voice under the name of the Committee to Investigate Atmosphere begins from the premise that tone is relational, belonging to shared experience...

"A light-hearted book about books and the people who write them for all lovers of literature. Do you know: Which famous author died of caffeine poisoning? Why Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was banned in China? Who was the first British writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? What superstitions Truman Capote kept whenever he wrote? Who the other Winston Churchill was? A treasure trove of compelling facts, riveting anecdotes, and extraordinary...