Böcker i Bookmarked-serien

This astonishing new book, by the brilliant Robin Black is an intimate meditation on reading and writing, aftermath and possibility, the tension between the never-stable, endlessly interpretable depths of a book and the fragility of life, the finality of death. I emerged from this breathtaking work with a transformed understanding of both Woolfs masterpiece and the stream of consciousness in which we swim, together and alone.Karen RussellReading Robin Blacks astute and enlightening meditation onMrs. Dallowayis like eavesdropping on a mesmerizing literary conversation, but one in which the participants are not two readers but a reader and a masterpiece. Black threads the very moving story of her own evolution as a writer through the exquisite fabric of Woolfs great novel, and the result will fascinate everyone who cares about the craft of fiction.Ann PackerI loved reading Robin Blacks take onMrs. Dalloway. She generously shares details of her own life that offer an example of how a great book stays with a person, and goes deep into the intricacies of important craft aspects of the text, illuminating its brilliance. Its a privilege to read alongside her.Alice Elliot DarkThrough Blacks gorgeous blend of personal narrative and incisive close reading, Virginia Woolfs novel becomes again fresh and contemporary, while at the same time deeper in its mysteries. I finished this Bookmarked knowing more about myself as a woman, reader, and writer. Pamela ErensAt fifty-nine, I am now the age Virginia Woolf was when she took that final, heavy-pocketed walk into The River Ouse. I am the age at which she killed herself, and I am not going to kill myself; but I was by no means always sure of that.Considered Virginia Woolf's greatest novel,Mrs. Dallowaytells the story of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high society woman in post World War I England. As she is preoccupied with the last-minute details of dinner party, Clarissa is flooded with remembrances of the past, in the process reexamining the choices she has made, as well as looking toward old age. Written in a stream of consciousness style,Mrs. Dallowayis one of the most important novels in literature.In this deeply personal volume, Robin Black writes about WoolfsMrs. Dalloway, a book she returned to again and again when she began writing at nearly forty and found herself gaining a sense of emotional stability for the first time in her life. For two decades,Mrs. Dallowayhas been Blacks partner in a crucial, ongoing conversation about writing and about the emotional life. Now, Black takes a deep dive into both the craft of the book, what a writer might learn from its mechanics, and also into the humanity to be found on every page.

In this trenchant memoir of reading and writing, Pamela Erens returns over a lifetime to George Eliot'sMiddlemarch.The calm, understanding, and generosity that shefinds in Eliot's masterpiecealbeit differently, at different moments in her own lifeinflects Erenssown account of becoming, and being, a mother and a writer. This short bookis filled with wisdom.Claire Messud, author ofKant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I WriteandThe Woman UpstairsErens makes an engaging andconvincing case for the value of readingMiddlemarchtoday, when we are still struggling to answer the questions it raisesabout marriage, about community, about society, and especially about how to balance our individual needs and desires against the claims of sympathy and conscience.Rohan Maitzen,author,Widening the Skirts of Light: Essays on George EliotandMiddlemarchfor Book ClubsThoughtful, frank, and always artful,Middlemarch and the Imperfect Lifeis an involving and deeply satisfying account of the reading and writing life.Rebecca Mead, author,My Life in MiddlemarchandHome/LandA masterly evocation of life in a provincial English community,Middlemarchis considered perhaps the greatestnovel of the Victorian era, praisedby writers from Emily Dickinson to Virginia Woolf.In the latest volume in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, critically lauded author Pamela Erens talks about howMiddlemarchrescued her, first as a distressed college student, and then during the tragic events of the global pandemic.

Celebrated by writers including Jonathan Franzen, who said that "[t]his crazy, gorgeous family novel is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century," The Man Who Loved Children is a 1940 novel by Australian writer Christina Stead. The harrowing portrait of a dysfunctional family, the novel focuses on the relationship between the father, Sam, a tyrannical crank far removed from the civilized man he thinks himself to be, his bitter wife, Henny, and their six children, particularly eldest daughter, Louie. Considering a contemporary classic, The Man Who Loved Children was named one of the the 100 greatest novels of all time by Time magazine. In her entry in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, author Lucy Ferriss juxtaposes the egoism and brutality of Sam with the behavior of her own father, using his dairies to give the reader an intimate and devastating portrait of their father-daughter relationship. Ferriss also shares how The Man Who Loved Children influenced her own creativity and development as a writer, as well as taking on male critics of the novel-including Franzen-to get to the true feminist heart of what Time called "the greatest picture of the lousiest family of all time."

A poet who crafted thegreatest character in literary history with his engaging anti-hero of Satan, John Milton connected personal experience with the breadth of cosmic epic. His Paradise Lost is a touchstone of English literature.In the latest entry in Ig's celebrated Bookmarked series, author Ed Simon considers Paradise Lost within the scope of his own alcoholism and recovery, the collapse of higher education, the imbecility ofthe canon wars, the piquant joys of labyrinthine sentences, and the exquisiteattractions of Lucifer. Milton is easy to respect and easier to fear, but withthe guidance of Simon, Milton becomes easiest of all to love. Paradise Lost mayhave generated thousands of works of criticism over the centuries, but none ofthem are like this.

What is it about Elena Ferrante's writing, especially her masterwork Neapolitan Novels, that resonates so deeply with millions of readers, making this Italian author who writes under a pseudonym with absolutely no "platform" an international sensation?Brilliantly addressing issues such as class struggle, female friendship, women's autonomy, and literary creation itself, Ferrante's hyperrealist, intense storytelling is a saga of a highly specific place and history, yet somehow also transcends them, resonating on profoundly personal levels with readers of every background. Gina Frangello grew up in poverty in inner-city Chicago two decades after Ferrante's most famous characters, Lenu and Lila grew up in Naples. Despite these geographic and cultural differences, Frangello felt that Ferrante was "writing about my youth, my life, my relationships, my struggles." In the latest volume in the Bookmarked series, Gina Frangello contemplates Ferrante's Neapolitan novels through the lens of memoir, literary criticism, and issues of authorial identity and gender. Should who Ferrante "is" matter? And more importantly, what is it about Lenu and Lila's story that taps into such universal truths that makes readers feel that Ferrante is writing specifically to them?