This is a collection of Patchett’s non-fiction essays, all previously published. Well-written, autobiographical, unresearched, and self-aggrandizing. Patchett is not only a strong writer, but she knows it and insists that you never forget it. The second essay of the book, the longest, too, is advice to wanna-be writers. Patchett’s bottom line is that to succeed as an author you must be really good, and by strong implication, as good as she is. Not much encouragement there. She has an essay about leaving her first husband and another about agreeing to take back her second husband. It takes courage, I’m sure, to expose your marital difficulties in print, but given how reliably Patchett insists she is faultless, it is somehow understandable why her marriages have been problematic and less than comprehensible how she chose the title of her book.