I. The World Around the Book. Do We Need Stories? ; Why Finish Books? ; E-books are for Grown-ups ; Does Copyright Matter? ; The Dull New Global Novel ; Reading It Wrong ; Why Readers Disagree ; Where I'm Reading From 41
II. The Book in the World. What's Wrong with the Nobel? ; A Game without Rules ; Most Favored Nations ; Writing Adrift in the World ; Art That Stays Home ; Writing without Style ; Literature and Bureaucracy ; In the Chloroformed Sanctuary ; Writers into Saints
III. The Writer's World. The Writer's Job ; Writing to Win ; Does Money Make Us Write Better? ; Fear and Courage 129 ; To Tell and Not to Tell ; Stupid Questions ; The Chattering Mind ; Trapped inside the Novel ; Changing Our Stories ; Writing to Death
IV. Writing Across Worlds. 'Are You the Tim Parks Who...?' ; Ugly Americans Abroad ; Your English Is Showing ; Learning to Speak American ; In Praise of the Language Police ; Translating in the Dark ; Listening for the Jabberwock ; In the Wilds of Leopardi ; Echoes from the Gloom ; My Novel, Their Culture.
