A Writer's Reader has always been my first choice as a text for beginning college writing courses because of its rich variety of form and content and the insightful and very readable commentary by Donald Hall. This new edition contains many recent additions by contemporary writers but also retains most of the classic essays that have been favorites of mine and so superbly illustrate the writer's craft and the beauty of form and content. Students like reading these essays, which show them how a writer makes choices about audience, tone, language, and illustration. The book is absent the tedious didacticism of many college writing texts and allows the instructor the pleasure and freedom of teaching by example and discussion.