Synopses & Reviews
In this collection of acerbic essays, Ugresic dissects the nature of the contemporary book industry, which she argues is so infected with the need to create and promote literature that will appeal to the masses--literally to everyone--that if Thomas Mann were writing nowadays, his books wouldn't even be published in the U.S. because they're not sexy enough.
A playful and biting critique, Ugresic's essays hit on all of the major aspects of publishing: agents, subagents, and scouts, supermarket-like bookstores, Joan Collins, book fairs that have little to do with books, authors promoted because of sex appeal instead of merit, and editors trying to look like writers by having their photograph taken against a background of bookshelves.
Thanks to cultural influences such as Oprah, The Today Show, and Kelly Ripa, best-seller lists have become just a modern form of socialist realism, a manifestation of a society that generally ignores literature in favor of the next big thing.
Review
"[S]uch a welcome addition to contemporary literary debate....Thank You for Not Reading, in short, is the ideal clothing accessory for the fool's paradise of bestsellerdom in our time." Washington Post Book World
Review
"Ugresic looses a variety of arrows from her rhetorical quiver, among them a sharp sense of irony, a keen sense of humor, and an edged contempt for the banality...of contemporary American culture....Sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet, always intelligent and graceful." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
In this collection of acerbic essays, Ugresic dissects the nature of the contemporary book industry, which she argues is so infected with the need to create and promote literature that will appeal to the masses literally to everyone that if Thomas Mann were writing nowadays, his books wouldn't even be published in the U.S. because they're not "sexy" enough.
Synopsis
Like Nabokov, Ugresic affirms our ability to remember as a source for saving our moral and compassionate identity.Ugresic must be numbered among what Jacques Maritain called the dreamers of the true; she draws us into the dream.
Synopsis
"A brilliant, enthralling spread of story-telling and high-velocity reflections . . . Ugresic is a writer to follow. A writer to be cherished."--Susan Sontag
About the Author
Dubravka Ugresic is the author of several works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender and Fording the Stream of Consciousness, and three collections of essays, Have a Nice Day, The Culture of Lies, and most recently Thank You for Not Reading. She has received several international prizes for her writing, including the Swiss Charles Veillon European Essay Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and most recently the Premio Feronio-Citta di Fiano. Born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, she left her homeland in 1993 for political reasons and currently lives in Amsterdam.Celia Hawkesworth was Senior Lecturer in Serbian and Croatian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London until her retirement. She has published numerous articles and several books on Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian literature, including a study Ivo Andric: Bridge between East and West, and Voices in the Shadows: Women and Verbal Art in Serbia and Bosnia. She has also published numerous translations, including several works by Ivo Andric and Dubravka Ugresic.