The Peanuts Papers: Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life: A Library of America Special Publication, Hardcover

A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip--and the life lessons it can teach us--from a stellar array of writers and artists

Peanuts, Charles Schulz's beloved comic strip, has given the world a cast of characters for the ages--Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Lucy among them. Here, in an unprecedented collection of thirty-two essays, artists and writers ranging from Ann Patchett to Chris Ware consider the deeper truths of Peanuts, its influence on their lives and on the culture more broadly, and the lessons it can teach us about disappointment, melancholy, and those fleeting moments of warm-puppy happiness. The contributors reflect on the experience of discovering Peanuts as a child, their identification with its characters and predicaments, and, for the artists in the book, the momentous effects of their encounters with the strip on their later careers. Taken together, the essays and comics of The Peanuts Papers enrich our understanding of the Peanuts gang and its world, with contributions not only about Charlie Brown and Snoopy but also Linus, Sally, Pigpen, and Peppermint Patty. The Peanuts Papers is an enchanting, poignant gathering of responses to the greatest American comic strip, enabling us to see it anew in fresh and revealing ways.

Andrew Blauner, editor, founded Blauner Books Literary Agency in 1995. He is the editor of six other anthologies: Coach; Brothers; Our Boston; Central Park; The Good Book; and In Their Lives; and is the co-editor of For the Love of Baseball. A graduate of Brown University and Columbia Business School, he is a member of PEN American Center and the National Book Critics Circle. His writing has been published in The New York Times, and he has appeared on a wide array of media outlets, including NPR's "On Point," "The Brian Lehrer Show," "The Leonard Lopate Show, and "About Writing" with Ben Cheever.