I. THE BIG PICTURE -- Good Griefs / Adam Gopnik -- Yesterday Will Get Better/ Ivan Brunetti -- Strip Mind / George Saunders -- It's Once Upon a Time, Charlie Brown! / Bruce Handy -- A Space for Thinking / Nicole Rudick -- Why I Love Peanuts/ Joe Queenan -- Nonsense! / Peter D. Kramer -- Percy Crosby and Skippy / David Hajdu -- On Krazy Kat and Peanuts / Umberto Eco -- What Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Peanuts Mean to Me / Kevin Powell -- Charlie Brown, Spider-Man, Me, and You / Ira Glass -- Drawing Empathy: A Cartoonist's-Eye View / Chris Ware -- II. CHARACTERS -- To the Doghouse / Ann Patchett -- There's Something Peculiar About Lying in a Dark Room. You Can't See Anything / Chuck Klosterman -- Je suis Sally Brown / Elissa Schappell -- Triangle with Piano / Mona Simpson -- On Unhappiness, Friendship, and Charlie Brown / Clifford Thompson -- Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy / Sarah Boxer -- III. TWO POEMS -- A Childhood in Four Acts / Jill Bialosky -- Grief / Jonathan Lethem -- IV. OFF THE PAGE -- A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving / Rick Moody -- Gospel According to Linus [I] / Rich Cohen -- How Innocence Became Cool / Gerald Early -- V. TRUE STORIES -- You're Weird, Sir / Jennifer Finney Boylan -- Bar Nuts / Leslie Stein -- Two Ponies / Jonathan Franzen -- Lucy Can't See/ Lisa Birnbach -- History of the Twentieth Century, Four Panels at Time / David Kamp -- Good Grief / Janice Shapiro -- Duck Boy / Maxine Hong Kingston -- Happiness Is Fleeting / Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell -- Gospel According to Linus [II] / David L. Ulin -- Pilgrimage / Seth