<p>By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City novels--the fourth, fifth, and sixth of which are collected in this second omnibus volume--stand as an incomparable blend of great storytelling and incisive social commentary on American culture from the seventies through the first two decades of the new millennium.</p><p><em>Back to Barbary Lane</em> comprises the second omnibus of the series--<em>Babycakes </em>(1984), <em>Significant Others</em> (1987), and <em>Sure of You</em> (1989)--continuing the saga of the tenants, past and present, of Mrs. Madrigal's beloved San Francisco apartment house. While the first trilogy celebrated the carefree excesses of the seventies, this volume tracks its hapless, all-too-human cast across the eighties--a decade troubled by plague, deceit, and overweening ambition.</p><p>Like its companion volumes, <em>28 Barbary Lane</em> and <em>Goodbye Barbary Lane</em>, <em>Back to Barbary Lane</em> is distinguished by what the <em>Guardian</em> (London) has called "some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read."</p>