"A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip-and the life lessons it can teach us-from a stellar array of writers and artists. Over the span of fifty years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture--hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some twenty years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their beguiling four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself. In The Peanuts Papers, thirty-three writers and artists reflect on the deeper truths of Schulz's deceptively simple comic, its impact on their lives and art and on the broader culture. These enchanting, affecting, and often quite personal essays show just how much Peanuts means to its many admirers--and the ways it invites us to ponder, in the words of Sarah Boxer, "how to survive and still be a decent human being" in an often bewildering world. Featuring essays, memoirs, poems, and two original comic strips, here is the ultimate reader's companion for every Peanuts fan."--Publisher's website

I. THE BIG PICTURE --

Good Griefs / Adam Gopnik -- Yesterday Will Get Better/ Ivan Brunetti -- Strip Mind / George Saunders -- It's Once Upon a Time, Charlie Brown! / Bruce Handy -- A Space for Thinking / Nicole Rudick -- Why I Love Peanuts/ Joe Queenan -- Nonsense! / Peter D. Kramer -- Percy Crosby and Skippy / David Hajdu -- On Krazy Kat and Peanuts / Umberto Eco -- What Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Peanuts Mean to Me / Kevin Powell -- Charlie Brown, Spider-Man, Me, and You / Ira Glass -- Drawing Empathy: A Cartoonist's-Eye View / Chris Ware --

II. CHARACTERS --

To the Doghouse / Ann Patchett -- There's Something Peculiar About Lying in a Dark Room. You Can't See Anything / Chuck Klosterman -- Je suis Sally Brown / Elissa Schappell -- Triangle with Piano / Mona Simpson -- On Unhappiness, Friendship, and Charlie Brown / Clifford Thompson -- Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy / Sarah Boxer --

III. TWO POEMS --

A Childhood in Four Acts / Jill Bialosky -- Grief / Jonathan Lethem --

IV. OFF THE PAGE --

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving / Rick Moody -- Gospel According to Linus [I] / Rich Cohen -- How Innocence Became Cool / Gerald Early -- V. TRUE STORIES -- You're Weird, Sir / Jennifer Finney Boylan -- Bar Nuts / Leslie Stein -- Two Ponies / Jonathan Franzen -- Lucy Can't See/ Lisa Birnbach -- History of the Twentieth Century, Four Panels at Time / David Kamp -- Good Grief / Janice Shapiro -- Duck Boy / Maxine Hong Kingston -- Happiness Is Fleeting / Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell -- Gospel According to Linus [II] / David L. Uli -- Pilgrimage / Seth