What it means when your father dies. How it feels when summer comes. What its like to live in a great but troubled American city. The value of wearing sunscreen. These are just a few of the topics that Mary Schmich addresses in this second, expanded edition of Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful to Me Now, a collection of more than 150 columns from the Chicago Tribune, including the 10 that won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Schmich is the rare newspaper columnist whose writing resonates long after its published and far beyond the place she lives. She may be best known for a column widely called Wear Sunscreenmisattributed to Kurt Vonnegut and turned into a hit recording by Baz Luhrmannbut her writing ranges as widely as life itself. It can be slyly humorous, deeply moving, or tough. She addresses subjects as varied as family love, sexual harassment, long friendships, poverty, and Chicago violence.

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