100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write

Sarah Ruhl writes essays about the things she knows best: the stage, her children, writing plays. Writing for the stage is the main focus of these pieces, but her look at writing for the stage comes from the edges—privacy, the place of rhyme in plays, the reversal of nobodies and somebodies (you have to read the book if you are curious about this), the decline in cast sizes, the audience. Ruhl addresses some questions no one else thought to ask: Is one person an audience? Is there an objective standard of taste? (Author's answer, by the way, is one word: No.) Is it bad when comedies make people laugh? along with the occasional motherhood question: Must one enjoy one's children?

I'm pretty sure Ruhl could take any thought and somehow relate it to playwriting and make it completely wonderful to read, even if one, like me, knows nothing about writing plays.