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I’ve always loved historic house museums, loved peering beyond the velvet rope into a Victorian bedroom or a colonial kitchen and imagining the ghosts that wore those dresses, or worked the handle of that butter churn, or laid the fire in that grate... 

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Futilitarians Our Year of Thinking Drinking Grieving & Reading

by Anne Gisleson
Futilitarians Our Year of Thinking Drinking Grieving & Reading

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ISBN13: 9780316393928
ISBN10: 0316393924



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Synopsis

Recommended Summer Reading -- Louise Erdrich, New York Times

A memoir of friendship and literature chronicling a search for meaning and comfort in great books, and a beautiful path out of grief

Anne Gisleson had lost her twin sisters, had been forced to flee her home during Hurricane Katrina, and had witnessed cancer take her beloved father. Before she met her husband, Brad, he had suffered his own trauma, losing his partner and the mother of his son to cancer in her young thirties. "How do we keep moving forward," Anne asks, "amid all this loss and threat?" The answer: "We do it together."

Anne and Brad, in the midst of forging their happiness, found that their friends had been suffering their own losses and crises as well: loved ones gone, rocky marriages, tricky child-rearing, jobs lost or gained, financial insecurities or unexpected windfalls. Together these resilient New Orleanians formed what they called the Existential Crisis Reading Group, which they jokingly dubbed "The Futilitarians." From Epicurus to Tolstoy, from Cheever to Amis to Lispector, each month they read and talked about identity, parenting, love, mortality, and life in post-Katrina New Orleans,
In the year after her father's death, these living-room gatherings provided a sustenance Anne craved, fortifying her and helping her blaze a trail out of her well-worn grief. More than that, this fellowship allowed her finally to commune with her sisters on the page, and to tell the story of her family that had remained long untold. Written with wisdom, soul, and a playful sense of humor, The Futilitarians is a guide to living curiously and fully, and a testament to the way that even from the toughest soil of sorrow, beauty and wonder can bloom.

Synopsis

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
Recommended Summer Reading -- Louise Erdrich, New York Times
"Gisleson writes with wit, warmth, and a spiritual devotion to books...Her search for purpose and connection amid chaos and loss permeates even the most heart-wrenching moments of The Futilitarians--and it's what turns the book from a meditation on reading to a celebration of being." --Jason Heller, NPR

Anne Gisleson had lost her twin sisters, been forced to flee her home during Hurricane Katrina, and watched cancer take the life of her beloved father. Before she met her husband, Brad, he had suffered his own trauma, losing his partner and the mother of his son to cancer in her early thirties. "How do we keep moving forward," Anne asks, "amid all this loss and threat?" The answer: "We do it together."

While forging their happiness, Anne and Brad found that their friends had been suffering their own crises: loved ones gone, rocky marriages, jobs lost or gained. Together they formed what they called the Existential Crisis Reading Group, jokingly dubbed "the Futilitarians." From Epicurus to Tolstoy, from Cheever to Amis, they read and talked about the questions that dogged them most. In the year after her father's death, these living-room gatherings in post-Katrina New Orleans helped Anne blaze a trail out of her well-worn grief and finally share the untold story of her family.
Written with wisdom, soul, and a playful sense of humor, The Futilitarians is a guide to living curiously and fully.


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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316393928
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
07/31/2018
Publisher:
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP
Pages:
272
Height:
.90IN
Width:
5.50IN
Author:
Anne Gisleson

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