Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for How Literature Saved My Life by David Shields - Available

How Literature Saved My Life

by David Shields
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample

“Reading How Literature Saved My Life is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form.” ––Whitney Otto
 
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
 
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Renata Adler’s Speedboat to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past) to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his “ridiculous” ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants “literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn’t lie about this––which is what makes it essential.”
 
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.

Expand title description text
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Kindle Book

  • Release date: February 5, 2013

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780307961532
  • Release date: February 5, 2013

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780307961532
  • File size: 2442 KB
  • Release date: February 5, 2013
Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography Literary Criticism Nonfiction

Languages

English

“Reading How Literature Saved My Life is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form.” ––Whitney Otto
 
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
 
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Renata Adler’s Speedboat to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past) to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his “ridiculous” ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants “literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn’t lie about this––which is what makes it essential.”
 
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.

Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography Literary Criticism Nonfiction
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.