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How Literature Saved My Life Signed Edition

by David Shields

Average based on 1 comment. Synopses & Reviews Read an Excerpt Read posts by David Shields on the Powells.com blog Customer Comments (1) ISBN13: 9780307961525 ISBN10: 0307961524 All Product Details

 

Staff Pick

David Shields's new book is a collagist's and lit lover's dream come true. Erudite and thoughtful, if you've ever lived or read a novel, you'll find much to admire and ruminate upon.
Recommended by Jeremy, Powell's City of Books

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

“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.

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About the Author

David Shields is the author of thirteen previous books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (NYT bestseller), Black Planet (National Book Critics Circle Award finalist), and Remote (winner of the PEN/Revson Award). He has published essays and stories in numerous periodicals, including the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Village Voice, Salon, Slate, McSweeney's, and Believer. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

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Essayist, April 5, 2013 (view all comments by Essayist)
I was not sure at first that I was getting what David Shields has to say, but not because I don't love literature or the lyric or the new essay. I do. Still, it took me a little while to realize that he was saying truths I know, and I hope that readers will give this book a chance.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780307961525

Author:

Shields, David

Publisher:

Knopf Publishing Group

Subject:

Literary Criticism : General

Copyright:

2013

Publication Date:

20130231

Binding:

HARDCOVER

Language:

English

Pages:

224

Dimensions:

8.65 x 5.84 x 0.91 in 0.82 lb

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How Literature Saved My Life Signed Edition New Hardcover David Shields

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Product details 224 pages Knopf Publishing Group - 2013-03-24 English 9780307961525 Reviews:

"Staff Pick" by Jeremy,

David Shields's new book is a collagist's and lit lover's dream come true. Erudite and thoughtful, if you've ever lived or read a novel, you'll find much to admire and ruminate upon.

by Jeremy