Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and RememberingA New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year: A look at the pleasures and surprises of rereading. Compared with reading, the act of rereading is far more personal—it involves a complex interaction of our past selves, our present selves, and literature. With candor and humor, this “inspired intellectual romp, part memoir, part criticism” takes us on a guided tour of the author’s own return to books she once knew—from the plays of Shakespeare to twentieth-century novels by Kingsley Amis and Ian McEwan, from the childhood favorite I Capture the Castle to classic novels such as Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, from nonfiction by Henry Adams to poetry by Wordsworth—as she reflects on how the passage of time and the experience of aging has affected her perceptions of them (Lawrence Weschler). A cultural critic and the acclaimed author of Why I Read, Wendy Lesser conveys an infectious love of reading and inspires us all to take another look at the books we’ve read to find the unexpected treasures they might offer. “Delightful.” —Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce “Anyone who has ever approached a once favorite book later in life . . . will find in this memoir moments of bittersweet recognition.” —The New York Times Book Review “Reflect[s] deeply and candidly on how a reader’s life experiences alter her perceptions of literature . . . [Lesser] has truly fascinating and original things to say about a compelling assortment of writers, including George Orwell, George Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare.” —Booklist |
From inside the book
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... it originally produced inus. Our old—that is our young—feelings are very nearly what page after page most gives us. — HENRY JAMES, "Honore de Balzac," 1902 People pretend that the Bible means the same to them Epigraph.
... it originally produced inus. Our old—that is our young—feelings are very nearly what page after page most gives us. — HENRY JAMES, "Honore de Balzac," 1902 People pretend that the Bible means the same to them Epigraph.
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Rereading and Remembering Wendy Lesser. People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say ...
Rereading and Remembering Wendy Lesser. People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say ...
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... mean new to me: not necessarily books that have just been published, but books which I have only now encountered for the first time, whether they are just out or hundreds of years old.) And in fact my rereading project, far from making ...
... mean new to me: not necessarily books that have just been published, but books which I have only now encountered for the first time, whether they are just out or hundreds of years old.) And in fact my rereading project, far from making ...
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... mean is that I needed to feel a life of letters going on around me—drawing from past works all the time, but also creating new ones every year, every minute—in order to feel that a book about reading was worth writing. I did not set out ...
... mean is that I needed to feel a life of letters going on around me—drawing from past works all the time, but also creating new ones every year, every minute—in order to feel that a book about reading was worth writing. I did not set out ...
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... mean by righting wrongs, seeing that you found me quite all right and left me very wrong indeed, with a broken leg which will not be right again as long as I live," says one of his victims. And there are deaths, as well, produced by a ...
... mean by righting wrongs, seeing that you found me quite all right and left me very wrong indeed, with a broken leg which will not be right again as long as I live," says one of his victims. And there are deaths, as well, produced by a ...
Contents
An Education | |
A Young Womans Mistakes | |
All Kinds of Madness | |
A Small Masterpiece | |
The Tree of Knowledge | |
McEwan inTime | |
The Strange Case of Huck and Jim | |
A Literary Career | |
Hitchcocks Vertigo | |
Back Matter | |
Back Cover | |
Spine | |
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Common terms and phrases
actors actually Adams's Aglaya Anna Anna Karenina become believe called Capture the Castle Casaubon Cervantes chapter character child childhood comes criticism Don Quixote Dorothea Dostoyevsky dream essay exactly experience fact feel felt fiction fool garden George Eliot George Orwell Henry Adams Henry James Hermione Howells Huck Huckleberry Finn humor husband idea idiot imagine instance Jenny Diski kind knew Lawrence Leontes literary live look Lucky Jim Madeleine McEwan mean memory ment Middlemarch Milton mother movie Myshkin narrator Nastasya never novel once Orwell Orwell's Paradise Lost perhaps person play pleasure plot poem prince Prospero readers remember rereading Road to Wigan Rocking-Horse Rocking-Horse Winner Sancho Panza scene Scotty seems sense Shakespeare sort story strange tell Tempest things thought tion true turn Vertigo WENDY LESSER Wigan Pier woman word Wordsworth writing