This personal essay by the acclaimed Rivka Galchen sets out from these ancient Japanese women writers in search of -the small- throughout the history of literature -- from Emily Dickinson to Fyodor Dostoevsky, from Robert Walser to Marianne Moore -- before returning to the Land of the Rising Sun and its contemporary boom of young female Japanese crime fiction writers.

Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book--a key inspiration for Rivka Galchen's new book--contains a list of -Things That Make One Nervous.- And wouldn't the blessed event top almost anyone's list?

Little Labors is a slanted, enchanted literary miscellany. Varying in length from just a sentence or paragraph to a several-page story or essay, Galchen's puzzle pieces assemble into a shining, unpredictable, mordant picture of the ordinary-extraordinary nature of babies and literature. Anecdotal or analytic, each part opens up an odd and tender world of wonder. The 47 Ronin; the black...