How Literature Saved My Life
Blending confessional criticism and cultural autobiography, David Shields explores the power of literature to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Evoking his deeply divided personality, his character flaws, his woes, his serious despair, he wants "literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn't lie about this—which is what makes it essential." This is a captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original book about the essential acts of reading and writing.
$27.99
November 5, 2013
David Shields is the author of twenty books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times best seller), and Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, Shields has published essays and stories in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, The Yale Review, Salon, Slate, McSweeney’s, and The Believer. His work has been translated into twenty languages.