Gertrude Stein is best known for the quote, "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." She was an early 20th century writer whose work mirrored the experimentalism of the Cubist art movement. "A Long Gay Book" (the novella that opens this volume -- a novella so substantial that it could well fill a volume by itself) is written in the stream-of-consciousness style that Stein helped to make famous. The tale begins by focusing on the idea of children being born with a clean slate, but it evolves into something else entirely. Born in the Allegheny West neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life.