Reading and romance, gardening tips, a farewell to a friend, even an opera retold make up this stellar collection from the bestselling author of The Group and Memories of a Catholic Girlhood This intriguing nonfiction collection by Mary McCarthy is a cornucopia of literary delights that challenges the mind and captivates the senses. "On Rereading a Favorite Book" is McCarthy's reaction to returning to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina after more than thirty years. In "Politics and the Novel," she shatters a myth about the American versus European style of storytelling. Acts of reading, when consummated, are akin to "Acts of Love." And "Saying Good-bye to Hannah" is a poignant farewell to the author of The Human Condition and, in particular, The Life of the Mind, the book Hannah Arendt saw as her crowning achievement. Whether giving us the story of La Traviata in her own words or reviewing a charming and practical book on gardening, McCarthy imbues Occasional Prose with her powerful sense of time and place. Uninhibited and uncensored, it filters the world through her unique gifts of observation and novelist's masterful eye for detail. This is a book for anyone interested in the life of the mind--and heart.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.