A moving and inspiring anthology of masterful essays on stories that touch the hearts and minds of readers.

"A writer," Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow once said, "is a reader who is moved to emulation." New York Times bestselling novelist and memoirist Andre Dubus III took that idea and invited acclaimed authors to write about short stories that altered their view of life and their place in it--short stories that, ultimately, made them want to write something substantial themselves.

Here is Richard Russo on Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," Joyce Carol Oates on John Updike's "A&P," Tobias Wolff on Hawthorne's "Wakefield," Michael Cunningham on James Joyce's "The Dead." Readers will gain new insight into these masterfully written stories but also on the contributors' own lives and work.

The fifty contributors are T.C. Boyle, Russell Banks, Richard Bausch, Robert Boswell, Charles Baxter, Ann Beattie, Madison Smartt Bell, Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Michael Cunningham, Junot Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Emma Donoghue, Stuart Dybek, Dagoberto Gilb, Julia Glass, Mary Gordon, Lauren Groff, Jennifer Haigh, Jane Hamilton, Ron Hansen, Paul Harding, Ann Hood, Pam Houston, Gish Jen, Charles Johnson, Phil Klay, Dennis Lehane, Lois Lowry, Colum McCann, Sue Miller, Rick Moody, Antonya Nelson, Bich Nguyen, Joyce Carol Oates, Stewart O'Nan, Peter Orner, ZZ Packer, Ann Patchett, Edith Pearlman, Jayne Ann Phillips, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Anna Quindlen, Ron Rash, Richard Russo, Dani Shapiro, Mona Simpson, Jess Walter, Tobias Wolff, and Meg Wolitzer.

Reaching Inside will remind you why you fell in love with reading.

Dubus, Andre

Andre Dubus III's seven books include the New York Times bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His most recent novel, Gone So Long, was named on many "Best Books" lists, including The Boston Globe's "Twenty Best Books of 2018." He has two new books forthcoming, the novel Such Kindness, due in summer 2023, and a collection of personal essays, Ghost Dogs, due in 2024. Dubus has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, and is a recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His books are published in more than twenty-five languages, and he teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.