本书共收入铁凝的散文随笔四十篇，篇篇都是美文精品。全书按内容分为三辑："唯有读书好"：文学魅力。有作者在重大文学论坛上的演讲，也有与著名评论家的对话录等，迥异的文字，诉说同一个主题：文学是人类精神的栖息地。"人事半消磨"：怀人忆事。怀念汪曾祺、孙犁等文坛前辈，记述自己双亲日常生活中的琐趣与嗜癖，念想幼年生活过的胡同，评述人性的高贵与卑劣，等等。这些个人历程中所遇的人和事，在作者的笔下都充满深情，浸透着哲思。"人在画中行"：品画随感。西方的经典画作、中国的民间年画等，作者都兴趣盎然，独特的视觉，精练的评述，人生需要艺术的点化，艺术演绎着人生的故事。 (This book collects Tie Ning's 40 proses, everyone is beautiful. This book is divided into three series according to the content:"Reading is good": the literary charm. It has the author's major literature speeches on the BBS, and also has dialogues with the famous critics, etc. Different words say about the same theme: literature is the habitat of the human spirit. "Personnel and things": recalling people and things. It misses literary predecessors such as Wang Zengqi, and Sun Li. It tells about his parents' anecdotes in daily life, recalling the lane in the youth, commenting human nobility and despicableness, and so on. People and things in his individual course in the author's works are full of deep feeling, and saturated with philosophizing. "People walking in the painting": draw essay. The western classical paintings, Chinese folk New Year pictures, etc. can all arouse the author's interest. They have unique vision and pithy comments. Life needs art enlightenment, and art deduces the story of life.)