Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation

: In these ambitious and enthusiastic "Essays on Creators and Creation," journalist Tom Bissell explores the will-to-art through an expansive cast of makers working in a variety of media. From a reverent exploration of the "mirages" of filmmaker Werner Herzog to a vitriolic, almost embittered screed against the prolific historian Robert D. Kaplan, Bissell's collection--compiled from more than a decade's worth of magazine writing--offers an impressive range of emotion, an unflagging intellect, a constantly engaging style, and a menagerie of compelling subjects. Hemingway? Check. David Foster Wallace? Check. Iraq War films? A sitcom producer? The world's most prolific female video-game voice-over specialist? Check, check, check. And if the idea of a nonfiction artist's writing about other creators strikes you as charmingly self-referential, then "Writing About Writing About Writing"--Bissell's survey of other writers' how-to-write books--will leave you ensorcelled. --Jason Kirk

Bissell is an assured and engaging first-person narrator, which is a rarer ability than many first-person writers know. While his body stands around, his line of thought is agile and ever-moving, from the observational to the philosophical, from the personal to the general. He is agreeable, even when the reader may disagree with him. — Tom Socca