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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... poem or essay, you will find a little reflected face peering out at you—the face of your own youthful self, the original reader, the person you were when you first read the book. So the material that wells up out of this rereading feels ...
... poem or essay, you will find a little reflected face peering out at you—the face of your own youthful self, the original reader, the person you were when you first read the book. So the material that wells up out of this rereading feels ...
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... poets traditionally do, or to sigh for a beloved made up wholesale, as Don Quixote does with Dulcinea? Which is the greater lie: to dress up as a knight because one deludedly believes in the reality of chivalry, or to dress up as a ...
... poets traditionally do, or to sigh for a beloved made up wholesale, as Don Quixote does with Dulcinea? Which is the greater lie: to dress up as a knight because one deludedly believes in the reality of chivalry, or to dress up as a ...
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... poetic works that he finds while sorting through Don Quixote's library: "These do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they are not harmful like the books of chivalry; they are works of imagination, such as may be read without ...
... poetic works that he finds while sorting through Don Quixote's library: "These do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they are not harmful like the books of chivalry; they are works of imagination, such as may be read without ...
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... poems that are sprinkled throughout the text; this time, after a brief struggle with my responsible-critic conscience, I did the same. The first time I read the book, it took so long to get through the initial volume that I had ...
... poems that are sprinkled throughout the text; this time, after a brief struggle with my responsible-critic conscience, I did the same. The first time I read the book, it took so long to get through the initial volume that I had ...
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... poets I liked best at the time were Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I still like them. They permanently ... poems owed something to that earlier affinity. What was the affinity, 44 Recollected in Tranquillity.
... poets I liked best at the time were Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I still like them. They permanently ... poems owed something to that earlier affinity. What was the affinity, 44 Recollected in Tranquillity.
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