A NATIONAL BESTSELLER Ever since the 1981 publication of her stunning debut, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist (her second novel, Gilead, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize), but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam-in which she reflects upon her Presbyterian upbringing, investigates the roots of Midwestern abolitionism and mounts a memorable defence of Calvinism-is respected as a classic of the genre, and praised by Doris Lessing as "a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit." In When I Was a Child I Read Books, Robinson returns to and expands upon the themes that have preoccupied her work with renewed vigour. In "Austerity as Ideology, " she tackles the global debt crisis and the charged political and social climate in America that makes finding a solution to the country’s financial troubles so challenging. In "Open Thy Hand Wide, " she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child, " one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of North America’s essential writers.