Synopses & Reviews
One of twentieth-century Americaandrsquo;s most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898andndash;1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time, there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal inand#160;Veniceand#160;remains one of the worldandrsquo;s great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life, and for her ironic, playful desire to shock.
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Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheimandrsquo;s life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-century art, as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries, to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs, and Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. Prose also explores the ways in which Guggenheimandrsquo;s image was filtered through the lens of insidious antisemitism.
Review
"As the title suggests, this book is likely to find its audience with readers who are also writers or who long to be." Library Journal
Review
"In this excellent guide, Prose explains exactly what she means by 'close reading,' drawing attention to the brick and mortar of outstanding narratives....In the process, she does no less than escort readers to a heightened level of appreciation of great literature." School Library Journal
Review
"Like the great works of fiction, it's a wise and voluble companion." New York Times
Synopsis
Francine Prose takes your students on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters--Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Joyce, Woolf, Chekhov--and discovers why these writers endure. Throughout READING LIKE A WRITER, she cautions students to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted.
The 28-page P.S. contains an author biography and READING AND WRITING: A CONVERSATION WITH FRANCINE PROSE--an extensive interview by Jessica Murphy--that first appeared in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY online.
Synopsis
A distinguished novelist and critic inspires readers and writers with this inside look at how the professionals read--and write
Long before there were creative writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose.
As she takes us on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters--Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov--Prose discovers why these writers endure. She takes pleasure in the signature elements of such outsatanding writers as Philip Roth, Isaac Babel, John Le Carr , James Joyce, and Katherine Mansfield. Throughout, she cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
Synopsis
Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose.
In Reading Like a Writer, Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted.
Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
Synopsis
A spirited portrait of the colorful, irrepressible, and iconoclastic American collector who fearlessly advanced the cause of modern art
About the Author
Francine Prose is the author of fourteen books of fiction, including, most recently, A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has taught literature and writing for more than twenty years at major universities such as Harvard, Iowa, Columbia, Arizona, and the New School. She is a distinguished critic and essayist. Prose lives in New York City.