How should we live? Is progress a blessing or a curse? How do technology, gender and race identity, choice, and freedom affect our values? Can we be true to our ideals?Susan Richards Shreve and Porter Shreve present the second book in their series that asks prominent writers and thinkers to take on issues of passionate moral and social concern. (Outside the Law, at left, was the first.) Here, they present a variety of compelling answers to the many questions we must ask about progress at the close of the twentieth century. Bruce Duffy writes about becoming "precisely the kind of people we promised ourselves we'd never be", particularly in relation to our children (the future incarnate). Shawn Wong reflects on the strange paths -- the questionable progress -- racial identity has taken in his family over the years. Rebecca Walker writes about feminism and progress; Deborah Tannen observes changes in men's and women's language as a possible measure of progress; and Alan Lightman tackles the idea of choice as a barometer of progress in our lives. These and other stellar writers and thinkers -- John Barth, Alan Cheuse, Pearl Abraham, Janna Malamud Smith, Annie Dillard, and others -- contribute original essays to this provocative and timely meditation on how we want to live our lives. Susan Richards Shreve is author of nine novels. She teaches at George Mason University. Porter Shreve has written for The Washington Post, and is now a graduate student at the University of Michigan.