National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A New York Times Notable Book A Best Book of the Year -Austin American-Statesman Includes a new, previously uncollected piece: "My Internet" In The Ecstasy of Influence, the incomparable Jonathan Lethem has compiled a career-spanning collection of occasional pieces-essays, memoir, liner notes, fiction, and criticism-which also doubles as a novelist's manifesto, self-portrait, and confession. The result is an insightful, charming, and entertaining grab bag that covers everything from great novels to old films to graffiti to cyberculture.