The Body:the sum of many diverse parts, each with its own distinct functions, purpose, characteristics, and personality. In toto - in a corporal sense - it is who and what we are; what we cherish, protect, and admire; what we fear, detest, and resent. It is the "you" others immediately recognize, both comfortably familiar and maddeningly inscrutable to the "I" who inhabits it - at once a vessel, a dear friend, a stern judge, and a treacherous betrayer.

In Bodyeighteen great contemporary American writers explore the singular components of this extraordinary whole, in short literary observations and appreciations that range from the visceral to the whimsical to the sinful and metaphysical.