A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A New York Times Bestseller A New York Magazine Best Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of Gilead Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as not only a major American novelist but also a rigorous thinker and an incisive essayist. In this lucid but impassioned collection, Robinson expands with renewed vigor the themes that have preoccupied her work. When I Was a Child I Read Books tackles the charged political and social climate in this country, the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith, and the nature 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 our essential writers.