“Timothy Noah put this book together only months after his wife died. Part of the motivation, aside from the obvious desire to pay tribute to her work, must have been to re-experience his wife’s conversation, to be once again in her company. Williams had a special voice, one capable not just of canny political observations but of tenderness and bracing intimacy. One can hardly blame Noah for wanting to share it again. Or for wanting to hear it one last time, all in a rush.”
— The New York Times Book Review


“A master of the political profile, Marjorie had that rare combination of old-school reporting smarts and newer-school social psychological insight. On top of this she was a witty and graceful stylist… As a journalist, and as a lunch companion, she had few peers and no betters.”  
— Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair


“For those who have never read Williams’ work, ‘The Woman at the Washington Zoo’ offers many pleasures and surprises. For those already familiar with her writing, this collection is a splendid memorial to an elegant prose stylist. As her husband observes, ‘The insight and effervescence and sweet sadness and tart humor of Marjorie’s words will always keep part of her alive.’”  
— Los Angeles Times


“Marjorie Williams, who died way before her time earlier this year, had the ability to infuse her journalism with the sort of psychological acuity usually found only in the best fiction…Williams’s interest in understanding her subject, and herself, shines through The Woman at the Washington Zoo (PublicAffairs), an astoundingly good collection of her writings edited by her husband, Timothy Noah… In his moving introduction, Noah pays homage to ‘the intense pleasure’ of his wife’s company. Dipping into this compelling collection, we see what he means.”  
— O, the Oprah Magazine


“I never met Williams, but what this book reveals is a woman who was incapable of being a victim. She lives in the modern world of Halloween costumes and working mom quandaries, but the story she tells is straight out of Greek literature—of a person cheated by fate, but facing reality unflinchingly and asserting personal honor despite it all.”   — David Brooks, The New York Times


“Even if you didn’t know Marjorie Williams through her columns and profiles in The Washington Post and Vanity Fair, you’ll still be moved by this posthumous collection—and finish it with a sense of loss… in describing scenes like wrestling a doctor for her medical chart, she offers a glimpse of her steel-gut gumption—a quality that served her well right until the end.”   — People Magazine


“‘She was more alive than anyone,’ [Tim Noah] said. And so, in her prose, she still is, in a book that gently morphs from a sampling of her profiles of the powerful to a survey of her syndicated columns for The Post, to the unfinished story of her own life and death… Like Joan Didion, whose current memoir, ‘The Year of Magical Thinking,’ chronicles her reaction to the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, Ms. Williams had a privileged perch from which to write about life's most universal experience: death itself.”   — Todd Purdum, The New York Times


“Long ago, when we were children, I sat next to Marjorie Williams at The Washington Post. I say this in the same spirit that someone might be lucky enough to say they once worked in the same office as Dorothy Parker. She was an incredible wit with x-ray eyes and a voice, in print and in person, that was unmistakable. As you read these piece on Washington life and, then, on her own life, you also begin to see that she was a writer of intelligence, courage, and soul. We were lucky to have had her and lucky, too, to have this book.   — David Remnick, The New Yorker


"What a tragedy that this superb writer -- and woman -- is no longer with us, but how lucky we are that she left us these marvelous writings. This is a book to treasure, as we did her."  
— Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You For Smoking


“Marjorie Williams put her whole best self into everything she wrote---wit, high spirits, honesty, heart, and brilliant literary gifts. She was not just the best Washington journalist of her generation, she was one of the best journalists, period.” 
 — Katha Pollitt, author of Reasonable Creatures