A study of Irish women taking a more visible role in contemporary society and the obstacles they are facing along the way.

A comprehensive and illuminating survey of literary journalism with both historical and international scope, this anthology is the only one of its kind. In a series of sparkling readings, Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda trace the evolution of the so-called "new" journalism back to the 18th century.

Now in paperback--from the author of the acclaimed Whoredom in Kimmage, a moving, controversial, and supremely intelligent memoir of a bright and vulnerable teenager's hellish summer job. In 1978, Rosemary Mahoney, an aspiring young writer of seventeen, wrote her personal idol Lillian Hellman inquiring whether the famed woman of American letters might need domestic help for the summer. When Hellman responded affirmatively, Mahoney imagined an idyll on Martha's Vineyard of mentoring and friendship. But in reality Mahoney's summer unfolded into an exquisite and grueling exercise in humiliation at the hands of the acerbic Hellman and her retinue of celebrated acquaintances. By turns heartbreaking and uproariously funny, A Likely Story portrays the coming-of-age of a brilliant and troubled young woman--a universal tale of illusions shattered and an object lesson in the often misdirected search for heroes.

In the tradition of Oliver Sacks's The Island of the Colorblind, Rosemary Mahoney tells the story of Braille Without Borders, the first school for the blind in Tibet, and of Sabriye Tenberken, the remarkable blind woman who founded the school. Fascinated and impressed by what she learned from the blind children of Tibet, Mahoney was moved to investigate further the cultural history of blindness. As part of her research, she spent three months teaching at Tenberken's international training center for blind adults in Kerala, India, an experience that reveals both the shocking oppression endured by the world's blind, as well as their great resilience, integrity, ingenuity, and strength. By living among the blind, Rosemary Mahoney enables us to see them in fascinating close up, revealing their particular "quality of ease that seems to broadcast a fundamental connection to the world." Having read For the Benefit of Those Who See, you will never see the world in quite the same way again. "In this intelligent and humane book, Rosemary Mahoney writes of people who are blind . . . She reports on their courage and gives voice, time and again, to their miraculous dignity." -- Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree

One year before the protests in Tiananmen Square, Rosemary Mahoney participated in a teaching exchange between Harvard and Hangzhou University. At Hangzhou she was able to overcome her students' usual rigidity and achieve a rare and intimate glimpse of their culture and their attitudes. This remarkable memoir captures both the dreams and the grim realities her Chinese students faced within the confines of an oppressive political regime.

Rosemary Mahoney was determined to take a solo trip down the Egyptian Nile in a small boat, even though civil unrest and vexing local traditions conspired to create obstacles every step of the way. Starting off in the south, she gained the unlikely sympathy and respect of a Muslim sailor, who provided her with both a seven-foot skiff and a window into the culturally and materially impoverished lives of rural Egyptians. Egyptian women don't row on the Nile, and tourists aren't allowed to for safety's sake. Mahoney endures extreme heat during the day, and a terror of crocodiles while alone in her boat at night. Whether she's confronting deeply held beliefs about non-Muslim women, finding connections to past chroniclers of the Nile, or coming to the dramaticm realization that fear can engender unwarranted violence, Rosemary Mahoney's informed curiosity about the world, her glorious prose, and her wit never fail to captivate.

An "enlightening but also very funny" (Paul Theroux) account of one woman's personal quest to find the roots of belief among modern religious pilgrims.