Synopses & Reviews
As book reviewer for NPR’s Fresh Air and contributor to many publications, Maureen Corrigan literally reads for a living. For as long as she can remember, books have been at the center of her life, a never-failing source of astonishment, hard truths, new horizons, and welcome companionship. Now Corrigan has added a volume of her own to the shelf of classics, by reading her life of reading with all the attention to complexity, wit, and intelligence that any good book–or life–deserves.
Part memoir, part coming-of-age story, and part reflection on favorite and influential books, Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading views the world through an open book. From her unpretentious girlhood in the working-class neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, Corrigan has always had a book at her side.
We read this life in reverse as Corrigan begins the book as a “professional reader” always conscious of the many people, like her own mother, who don’t “get” the power of reading, and we end up as a fly on the wall of this only child in Queens, transported to exciting yet threatening worlds beyond her small apartment, a block from the #7 subway.
Corrigan’s references range from Richard Wright to Philip Roth to Chekhov, but certain themes emerge. Corrigan subverts the classic “man conquers mountain or ocean or battlefield” genre by juxtaposing it with what she calls “female extreme adventure novels”–books such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the Collected Poems of Stevie Smith, and Anna Quindlen’s Black and Blue, which feature women quietly fighting for their lives.
Hard-boiled detective stories that cloak social criticisms of work and family beneath their protagonist’s trench coat–-Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, Sara Paretsky’s mysteries–are another abiding passion. More surprising, and perhaps more revealing, is her taste for tales of Catholic martyrs and secular saints, a holdover from her days in parochial school that left an indelible impression.
Moving from page to life and back again, Corrigan writes ultimately of fashioning a complicated, sometimes contradictory self out of her class background, her classroom teaching, and her own classics of literature; a list of favorite books is also included. In Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, Maureen Corrigan invites us to accompany her on the journey of a lifetime.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
A lifelong book lover and NPR book critic speaks out on the authors and the books that have played a key role in her life, exploring how the magic of reading has helped her understand herself and reflecting on how a love of literature can help transform our lives. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.
Synopsis
In this delightful memoir, the book critic for NPR s Fresh Air reflects on her life as a professional reader. Maureen Corrigan takes us from her unpretentious girlhood in working-class Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, always with a book at her side. Along the way, she reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan s love for a good story shines.
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Synopsis
“Its not that I dont like people,” writes Maureen Corrigan in her introduction to Leave Me Alone, Im Reading. “Its just that there always comes a moment when Im in the company of others—even my nearest and dearest—when Id rather be reading a book.” In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigans love for a good story shines.
About the Author
Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for NPRs Fresh Air. Her reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, The Nation, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, and other publications. Winner of an Edgar Award for criticism, Corrigan also regularly writes a mystery column for The Washington Post and teaches literature at Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and daughter, both avid readers.