{"product_id":"am-i-alone-here-notes-on-living-to-read-and-reading-to-live-9781936787258","title":"Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis National Book Critics Circle Award is \"an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times). \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Stories, both my own and those I've taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I've become,\" Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmong the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, \u003ci\u003eAm I Alone Here?\u003c\/i\u003e is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Catapult\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/25\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781936787258\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 276\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.88d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/22\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/0001\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/15\/2016 pg. 10\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/18\/2016\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Peter Orner","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43067753726133,"sku":"9781936787258","price":15.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_e9253d0e-b40a-4821-980a-d7d1bf715d4f.jpg?v=1690864724","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/am-i-alone-here-notes-on-living-to-read-and-reading-to-live-9781936787258","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}