FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD brAND THE PEN ART OF THE ESSAY AWARD pOver the past decade and a half, Daniel Mendelsohn's reviews for iThe New York Review of Booksi, iThe New Yorkeri, and iThe New York Times Book Reviewi have earned him a reputation as one of the greatest critics of our time iPoets Writersi. In iWaiting for the Barbariansi, he brings together twenty-four of his recent essays--each one glinting with verve and sparkle, acumen and passion--on a wide range of subjects, from iAvatari to the poems of Arthur Rimbaud, from our inexhaustible fascination with the iTitanici to Susan Sontag's iJournalsi. Trained as a classicist, author of two internationally best-selling memoirs, Mendelsohn moves easily from penetrating considerations of the ways in which the classics continue to make themselves felt in contemporary life and letters Greek myth in the iSpider-Mani musical, Anne Carson's translations of Sappho to trenchant takes on pop spectacles--none more exp