A new, compelling collection of essays by Sven Birkerts, "one of America's most distinguished, eloquent servants of the poetry and fiction that matter" (Susan Sontag) Reading, the mind's traffic in signs and signifiers, is the most dynamic, changeful, and possibly transformational act we can imagine. To have read a work and have been strongly affected by it--and then to come back to it after many years--can be a foundation-shaking enterprise. InReading Life, virtuoso critic and essayist Sven Birkerts examines what it means to return to resonant works of fiction--the books one thinks of "covetously, as private properties," the "personal signposts" of one's inner life. For Birkerts, these includeThe Catcher in the Rye,Humboldt's Gift,To the Lighthouse, andLolita. In twelve far-reaching and intimate essays, Birkerts reflects upon his first readings and what later encounters reveal about time, memory, and the murmuring transistors of selfhood. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Previously published in the American Scholar, the Believer and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among others, these critical responses address a group of novels--including The Catcher in the Rye, The Good Soldier and The Moviegoer--that chart the "topographical reference points" on the rough "map of [Birkerts's] inwardness." Though he has read many of the books several times, Birkerts, who teaches at Harvard and edits the journal Agni, is still often "surprised, going back, to find the work had grown fresh again, full of unexpected turns and nuances." Most of the essays are structured to reflect this unanticipated and gratifying energy by beginning at the moment of first encounter with the books under discussion--"the frisson of first connection": Madame Bovary in a Montana bunkhouse or the discovery of Humboldt's Gift after the breakup of an important romantic relationship. Looking back on the lonely, estranged and marginal selves that found (and still find) solace in the "disputatious inner swing" of the "secret Masonic life of reading," Birkerts uncovers a stabilizing realization. Through "shifts" and "twists of vantage," this collection recounts the essential transformational value of a lifetime spent discovering the self that "comes fully awake only in the dream of a book." (Apr.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

In these 12 essays, noted essayist, reviewer, and editor Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies) presents himself as the consummate reader. Through his active engagement with works like J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Henry James's The Ambassadors, he takes the reader on a marvelous journey into the very heart of the books as well as into his own heart. Birkerts writes with extraordinary sensitivity about the experience of reading these works at a particular moment in his life and then of rereading them and reflecting on them again and again over the years. He mesmerizes the reader with his ability to recall who he was at the time of an earlier reading as well as how the reading itself has helped to shape who he has become. His insightful comments are less about the works themselves than about the discoveries he makes through his complete engagement with the rhythm of the words and the characters brought to life on the page. It is difficult to imagine anyone writing with greater passion and eloquence about the power of books to change our lives. Highly recommended.-Anthony Pucci, Notre Dame H.S., Elmira, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

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