A nominee for the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, this volume contains 20 essays demonstrating Davenport's bold, imaginative forays into literature and art, history, anthropology, architecture and popular culture. The subjects range from Montaigne to Mary Chestnut's Civil War diary; from the influence of Krazy Kat on E.E. Cummings to the influence of "Pergolesi's Dog" on artist Joseph Cornell; and from the visual decline of the urban landscape to the anthropological investigations of table manners. ISBN 0-86547-247-5: $16.95.