The Woman at the Washington Zoo

In 1986, Marjorie Williams became an editor at the Washington Post, where she made a name for herself via her sharp political writing. The political profiles she wrote for the Post led to doing the same for Vanity Fair, and she quickly became considered a leading authority on the big names in politics. In January, 2005 Williams died of liver cancer at the age of 47. The Woman at the Washington Zoo is a collection of Marjorie Williams' columns from the Post and elsewhere, edited posthumously by her husband, Slate writer, Timothy Noah.

Read two of Marjorie Williams' columns excerpted from The Woman at the Washington Zoo.