Takes:  Stories from The Talk of the Town by Lillian Ross is a 278-page hardcover published by Congdon & Weed, Inc., New York, 1983.  The dust jacket is moderately faded from the sun and has some dampstaining on the back cover of the jacket.  There is some shelf wear along the top and a 1/2" closed tear at the top of the front jacket edge.  The cover is a green and maroon half-cloth hardcover with gilt lettering on the spine.  The book is slightly cocked but still sound.  Inside, the pages are clean and unmarked.  There appears to be some minor water staining on the last twenty pages along the bottom resulting in wavy edges.   The condition is fair to good.

Book Summary

This book contains thirty-six stories written by Lillian Ross for The New Yorker's Talk of the Town.  Talk of the Town stories are glimpses.  Lillian Ross's stories are inspired and unforgettable glimpses.  As Miss Ross points out in her introduction, Talk of the Town stories are not abbreviated versions of something else; they are complete in themselves, and are precisely as long as they ought to be. 

She writes here about the film directors Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, and John Huston; about the musicians Benny Goodman, Yehudi Menuhin, Burt Bacharach, and Simon & Garfunkel; about the playwrights Edward Albee and Harold Pinter; about Mayors John Lindsay, Abraham Beame, and Edward Koch of New York; about the dog expert Mel Davis; about twelve-year-old success-worshipers and a ninety-year-old theatrical director; about a convention of lawyers and a party honoring Alexander Graham Bell; about a flight on the Concorde and a trip to Boston on a bus; about trifles and about matters weightier; and--in two portraits that have become classics of reporting--about the late Ralph Bunche and the late Adlai Stevenson.

ISBN:  0-86553-074-2