Eileen Stukane

The renovation of the Meatpacking District in my Greenwich Village neighborhood has been inspirational to those of us who live here. In the past five years, wonders of high fashion and nature have been created from what used to be a death row smelling of slaughtered animals. I can walk...

Take a look at those capsule descriptions on the New York Times bestseller list . Without ever reading the books themselves, they tell a pretty funny story about our efforts to cope with what lies ahead.

Escape by any means possible, not excluding death, is evident....