Nobody's Looking At You: Essays

"Janet Malcolm is one of those writers I would follow anywhere, and this book is no exception. Topics discussed include the three sisters who together own the Argosy bookshop, a New York institution; the life and working habits of the eccentric pianist Yuja Wang; Tolstoy as a comedic writer; the fashion designer Eileen Fisher. But don’t be fooled if any seem boring. A longtime journalist for the New Yorker , Malcolm’s investigations tend to take apparently ordinary institutions or scenes and, through her unrivaled powers of curiosity, observation and description, reveal their extraordinary inner workings."

"Each of the essays in Janet Malcolm’s Nobody’s Looking at You turn up small, beautiful details that get caught in your brain like dandelion seeds get caught on a sweater. There’s pianist Yuja Wang, on a world tour with Beethoven’s most difficult sonatas – but all anyone talks about are her short, tight stage dresses. There’s an earnest review of the TLC docuseries Sarah Palin’s Alaska. My favorite of the lot is her essay “Three Sisters,” about the owners of a Manhattan bookstore so cool that singer and writer Patti Smith once lied about her book-restoring credentials to get a job there – and was quickly let go after she accidentally spilled rabbit glue all over a 19th century Bible, a detail I discovered while reading Nobody’s Looking at You."