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Essays one

by Davis, Lydia, 1947-

Format: Print Book 2019
Availability: Available at 2 Libraries 2 of 3 copies

Available (2)
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CLP - Main Library Second Floor - Non-fiction PS3554.A9356 A6 2019
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  Second Floor - Non-fiction
 
Call Number  PS3554.A9356 A6 2019
 
 
South Park Library Nonfiction 814.54 DAV
Location  South Park Library
 
Collection  Nonfiction
 
Call Number  814.54 DAV
 
 
 
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CLP - Squirrel Hill Non-Fiction Collection CHECKED OUT
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Summary

A selection of essays on writing and reading by the master short-fiction writer Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is a writer whose originality, influence, and wit are beyond compare. Jonathan Franzen has called her "a magician of self-consciousness," while Rick Moody hails her as "the best prose stylist in America." And for Claire Messud, "Davis's signal gift is to make us feel alive."

Best known for her masterful short stories and translations, Davis's gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. In Essays One , Davis has, for the first time, gathered a selection of essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past five decades.

In this first of two volumes, her subjects range from her earliest influences to her favorite short stories, from John Ashbery's translation of Rimbaud to Alan Cote's painting, and from the Shepherd's Psalm to early tourist photographs. On display is the development and range of one of the sharpest, most capacious minds writing today.

Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Davis is renowned for her piquant, mischievous, and emotionally astute very short stories, gathered most recently in Can't and Won't (2014). This sizable and scintillating collection is the first to showcase Davis' nonfiction. Much of the pleasure in these agile and illuminating literary inquiries is found in her tales of how she came to write, what led her away from traditional short stories to pursue her particular style of brevity, and how she works. Davis' readers relish the quick feints and thrusts of her concise stories, and here we discover just how much revision is involved in their composition. In Revising One Sentence, a piece which has itself been reworked over the years, she explains how she not only revises the words but also the thought of the sentence. Other essays focus on her close readings of such writers as Thomas Pynchon, Lucia Berlin, Rae Armantrout, and Maurice Blanchot, her use of found material, and her delight in surprise, exactitude, and the absurd. A second volume about her work as a distinguished translator of Proust and Flaubert is in the offing.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2019 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "The first in a planned two-volume collection of the nonfiction of short story author Davis (Samuel Johnson Is Indignant) proves a cornucopia of illuminating and timeless observations on literature, art, and the craft of writing. A master of short, punchy prose works, Davis discloses her influences, some of which may be surprising even to longtime fans, including Roland Barthes, Franz Kafka, and Grace Paley, among many more. In a few essays, Davis presents first drafts of her own work along with the final versions, annotating and explaining revisions and providing an instructive window into her process. Interwoven throughout are short pieces on some of Davis's favorite artists, or alternatively, those whom she finds pleasingly confounding. In the latter category is expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, whose 1973 work Les Bluets Davis credits with helping her to accept and embrace the inscrutable. Invaluable is the 2013 piece "Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits," which outlines best practices for creative writing, from honing one's observational techniques to crafting believable dialogue. Fans of Davis's unfailingly clever work should add this volume to their collection, and creative writers of every genre should take the opportunity to learn from a legend. Agent: Denise Shannon, Denise Shannon Literary. (Nov.)"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Mitchell, Joan, -- 1925-1992.
Cornell, Joseph.
Cote, Alan, -- 1937-
Authorship.
Fiction -- Technique.
Writing.
Reading.
Art.
Essays.
Publisher New York :Farrar, Straus and Giroux,2019
Edition First edition.
Other Titles Essays.
Language English
Description x, 512 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 20 cm
ISBN 9780374148850
0374148856
Other Classic View