The Writers' Lounge

You like the big descriptions, huh? Me, I like it snappy and I want it to draw me in and make me desperate for the rest. So here's my contribution from PG Wodehouse (I could have chosen any of about half a dozen of his books, but I plumped for 'PSmith, Journalist' because I adore the silly, somewhat slanted peep into the New York of 1915):

The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis was imminent in New York journalism.

Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely on Broadway. Newsboys shouted "Wux-try!" into the ears of nervous pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society passed up and down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there a furrow of anxiety upon Society's brow? - None. At a thousand street corners a thousand policemen preserved their air of massive superiority to the things of this world. Not one of them showed the least sign of perturbation. Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr J. Fillken Wilberfloss, editor-in-chief of Cosy Moments, was about to leave his post and start on a ten weeks' holiday.