One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the twenties and thirties and continuing to the present, this collection of New Yorker Profiles presents readers with a portrait gallery of some of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. These Profiles are literary-journalistic investigations into character and accomplishment, motive and madness, beauty and ugliness, and are unrivalled in their range, their variety of style, and their embrace of humanity.

This abridged audiobook edition includes these eleven profiles:

“Mr. Hunter’s Grave” by Joseph Mitchell
“Isadora” by Janet Flanner
“Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody” by Ian Frazier
“Covering the Cops” by Calvin Trillin
“The Man Who Walks on Air” by Calvin Tomkins
“How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?” by Lillian Ross
“Wunderkind” by A. J. Liebling
“The Duke in His Domain” by Truman Capote
“A Pryor Love” by Hilton Als
“Lady with a Pencil” by Nancy Franklin
“The Coolhunt” by Malcolm Gladwell
“Show Dog” by Susan Orlean