The Thing Itself: On the Search for Authenticity

The celebrated literary memoir and chronicle of one manA's search for the elusive gift of authenticity.

Troubled by the lack of substance in contemporary life, Richard Todd suspects that much of what we experience is false. In this unique pursuit of the A"genuine,A" Todd examines his search for authenticity in places and objects, in politics and ideas, and in ourselves, and recounts his efforts to understand the desire to be a real person in a real world.

Richard Todd has spent many years as a magazine and book editor at The Atlantic Monthly, New England Monthly, and Houghton Mifflin, and now works independently as a consultant. He is a member of the MFA faculty at Goucher College.