Sign-In
Cart
Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021
Hardcover
Letters & EssaysGeneral SociologyGeneral World History
Publisher Price: $26.00
ISBN13: 9780802160249
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: Jan 17 2023
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.88
Height: 1.30 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.30
Language: English
From the Booker-shortlisted author of Umbrella, a world-girdling collection of writings inspired by a life lived in and for literature
From one of the most unusual and distinctive writers working today, dubbed the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation by the Guardian, Will Self's Why Read is a cornucopia of thoughtful and brilliantly witty essays on writing and literature.
Self takes us with him: from the foibles of his typewriter repairman to the irradiated exclusion zone of Chernobyl, to the Australian outback, and to literary forms past and future. With his characteristic intellectual brio, Self aims his inimitable eye at titans of literature like Woolf, Kafka, Orwell, and Conrad. He writes movingly on W.G. Sebald's childhood in Germany and provocatively describes the elevation of William S. Burroughs's Junky from shocking pulp novel to beloved cult classic. Self also expands on his regular column in Literary Hub to ask readers, how, what, and ultimately why we should read in an ever-changing world. Whether he is writing on the rise of the bookshelf as an item of furniture in the nineteenth century or on the impossibility of Googling his own name in a world lived online, Self's trademark intoxicating prose and mordant, energetic humor infuse every piece.
A book that examines how the human stream of consciousness flows into and out of literature, Why Read will satisfy both old and new readers of this icon of contemporary literature.
2 different editions
Also available
Also from
Self, Will
Also in
Letters & Essays
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Nezhukumatathil, Aimee
Paperback
Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt
McCourt, Frank
McCourt, Malachy
Hardcover
Little Apocalypses: Essays on Motherhood, Climate Change, and Hope at the End of the World
Teer, Kaitlyn
Paperback
Corazón Migrante. Ensayos Sobre Lo Que No Puedo Olvidar / Migrant Heart: Essays on What I Cannot Forget
Grande, Reyna
Paperback
Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian
Wiman, Christian
Volf, Miroslav
Hardcover
Love in the Afternoon, and Evening: Essays and Conversations on Soap Operas
Druckman, Charlotte
Sen, Mayukh
Paperback
Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded): The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
VanderMeer, Jeff
Paperback
Mon Cher Amour: The Love Letters of Albert Camus and Maria Casares, 1944-1959
Camus, Albert
Hardcover
Languages of Home: Essays on Writing, Hoop, and American Lives 1975-2025
Wideman, John Edgar
Hardcover
Gilmore Girls: The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge: The Official Guide to All the Books
Berlin, Erika
Hardcover