Urbane, lyric, witty and gracious essays written mostly in his last 14 months by a former editor of The New York Times Book Review.

Urbane, lyrical, witty and gracious essays by a former book critic and editor at The New York Times, written mostly in his last 14 months.

Philadelphia magazine won for a collection of witty, personal essays that celebrated the joys of baking bread, shooting pool and soaking in a steam bath.

An "astute and provocative book . . . of wise and witty essays" about "the lives of independent and ambitious women."

"In elegant and witty essays on the backs of albums, he creates this interesting character, all this iconography that jumps off the page."

Mr. Steingarten's comment was typical of his witty and acerbic culinary essays that appear monthly in Vogue magazine.

So you play 3 hour board games, read books, watch movies, and write witty essays.

A witty essay by Adam Sternbergh announced the phenomenon in an April 2006 New York magazine.

Evelyn Waugh's witty essay, Half in love with easeful death, imagines archaeologists in 1000 years coming upon Forest Lawn.

"If he were told to go forth and write about doorknobs, he would return with a witty, perceptive essay in hand," William Grimes said here last year.