For the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Little Women - what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March sisters, reflecting on each particular sister's story and what it has to teach us. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives.

For the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Little Women - what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March sisters, reflecting on each particular sister's story and what it has to teach us. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives.