The 60s - Henry Finder

This fascinating anthology collects notable New Yorker pieces from the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century-including work by James Baldwin, Pauline Kael, Sylvia Plath, Roger Angell, and Muriel Spark-alongside new assessments of the 1960s by some of today's finest writers.

Here are real-time accounts of these years, brought to immediate and profound life: Calvin Trillin reports on the integration of Southern universities, E. B. White and John Updike wrestle with the enormity of the Kennedy assassination, and Jonathan Schell travels with American troops into the jungles of Vietnam. Some of the truly timeless works of American journalism came out of The New Yorker that decade, including Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, all excerpted here. The arts, too, underwent an extraordinary transformation, with the magazine publishing such indelible short story masterpieces as John Cheever's "The Swimmer" and John Updike's "A & P"; iconic poems by Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton; and in-depth profiles of crucial cultural figures like Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Muhammad Ali (when he was still Cassius Clay). This collection of groundbreaking pieces is also given contemporary context by current New Yorker writers, resulting in an incomparable portrait of a truly galvanizing era.

Including contributions by Renata Adler
Roger Angell
Hannah Arendt
James Baldwin
Truman Capote
Rachel Carson
John Cheever
Mavis Gallant
Pauline Kaell
Jane Kramer
John McPhee
Sylvia Plath
Muriel Spark
Calvin Trillin
John Updike
E. B. White

And featuring new perspectives by Jennifer Egan
Malcolm Gladwell
Dana Goodyear
Adam Gopnik
Jill Lepore
Larissa MacFarquhar
Evan Osnos
George Packer
Kelefa Sanneh

Praise for The 60s: The Story of a Decade

"The third installment in the esteemed magazine's superb decades series . . . The contributor list is an embarrassment of riches. . . . The hits continue. Bring on the '70s."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[The 60s] deserves a lasting place on one's shelves. Like its predecessors in the series, this collection is a time capsule and a keeper."-Booklist