. . .nonfiction that aspires to the condition of art. This aspiration may reveal itself in many ways-in close attention to language, for instance, or in an elegant, original structure, or in a well-paced narrative or in a surprising voice or in a new, unusual take on an old subject. Literary nonfiction uses the materials of the ordinary world in extraordinary ways. It pays attention and attempts to find what one of Henry James’s characters calls “the figure in the carpet”, the design that is woven into even the most everyday events.    –Rebecca McLanahan