How Literature Saved My Life

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Books & Reading, Essays & Letters, Essays, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book How Literature Saved My Life by David Shields, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: David Shields ISBN: 9780307961532
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Publication: February 5, 2013
Imprint: Vintage Language: English
Author: David Shields
ISBN: 9780307961532
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication: February 5, 2013
Imprint: Vintage
Language: English

“Reading How Literature Saved My Life is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form.” ––Whitney Otto
 
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
 
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Renata Adler’s Speedboat to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past) to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his “ridiculous” ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants “literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn’t lie about this––which is what makes it essential.”
 
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

“Reading How Literature Saved My Life is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form.” ––Whitney Otto
 
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
 
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Renata Adler’s Speedboat to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past) to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his “ridiculous” ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants “literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn’t lie about this––which is what makes it essential.”
 
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.

More books from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Cover of the book The Moor's Last Sigh by David Shields
Cover of the book Frost: Poems by David Shields
Cover of the book Havana Dreams by David Shields
Cover of the book Revolutionary Mothers by David Shields
Cover of the book The Art of Fiction by David Shields
Cover of the book Runes of the North by David Shields
Cover of the book The Fields by David Shields
Cover of the book Mountain Man Dance Moves by David Shields
Cover of the book The Girl Who Played with Fire by David Shields
Cover of the book Jamesland by David Shields
Cover of the book The Yankee Years by David Shields
Cover of the book The Heat's On by David Shields
Cover of the book A Few Corrections by David Shields
Cover of the book The Daring Ladies of Lowell by David Shields
Cover of the book The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories by David Shields
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy