Jonathan Safran-Foer, while still an unpublished college-student, solicited his favorite authors to write about Cornell prints which he sent them in the mail along with his request for submissions.

He was surprised when many of most famous and well-regarded personages on his list—including Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Barry Lopez, and others—responded enthusiastically to his proposal.

"[1] "Emory Bird Hands' Birds" by Barry Lopez "Rowing In Eden"by Erik Anderson Reece "It Generally Leads a Solitary Life or Lives in Pairs" by Rick Moody "The Box Artist" by Joyce Carol Oates "Showing An Episode" by Diane Williams "The Cursive Example" by Howard Norman "Construction" by John Burghardt "Boxed In" by Paul West "Nine Boxes" by Siri Hustvedt "The Grand Hotels" by Robert Coover "For Brother Robert" by Bradford Morrow "Magic Musée" by Martine Bellen "The Appearance of Things" by Dale Peck "Slide Show" by Joanna Scott "Of A Feather" by Diana Ackerman "Bookmark, Horizon (Emily Dickinson)" by Ann Lauterbach "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" by Mary Caponegro "Grid Box" by Rosmarie Waldrop "Song" by Robert Pinsky "The Impetus Was Delight" by Lydia Davis "Poem In Which a Bird Does Some of the Talking" by John Yau "If the Aging Magician Should Start to Believe" by Jonathan Safran Foer The pieces in this book range from straight fiction and straight poetry, to experimental works.

The book was acknowledged alongside other major works which have approached Cornell as a literary subject in the New York Times.

Roscoe, author of the Times article, points out that the literary responses to the Cornell boxes are part of a correspondence.