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Instead of a Letter, Paperback by Athill, Diana; Dunham, Lena (AFT), Brand Ne...
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eBay item number:267019282464
Item specifics
- Condition
- ISBN
- 9781681376134
About this product
Product Identifiers
Publisher
New York Review of Books, Incorporated, T.H.E.
ISBN-10
168137613X
ISBN-13
9781681376134
eBay Product ID (ePID)
9050384118
Product Key Features
Book Title
Instead of a Letter
Number of Pages
224 Pages
Language
English
Publication Year
2023
Topic
Editors, Journalists, Publishers, Women, Literary
Genre
Biography & Autobiography
Format
Trade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height
0.7 in
Item Weight
9.6 Oz
Item Length
8 in
Item Width
5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended Audience
Trade
LCCN
2021-037266
Dewey Edition
19
Reviews
"Supple, frank, unafraid of contradictions, Athill's literary voice has all the courageous intelligence one associates with a certain type of British writer but none of the chill. This [is] the author's scrupulous reckoning of her own single and childless existence . . .her work in publishing and the thrilling discovery that she, too, could write." -- The New Yorker "Athill doesn't write as if no one is watching; she writes as if she'd never even imagined someone might watch, and therefore doesn't have a scruple to hold on to... she doesn't pass off heartbreak as a blessing in disguise, or her subsequent successful career as a silver lining. Her abandonment was more like a signpost, something that pointed her to a brambly but invigorating path." --Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker "Athill writes elegantly about the shabby gentility of her childhood and her later career as a literary editor, but the drama here is in her frankness about the struggle to rebuild a personality taken apart by sadness." --Susie Steiner, The Guardian "The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman, open-minded and open-hearted." --Hilary Mantel, Spectator "Perhaps Athill's greatest legacy was her refusal to cede to societal expectations as she carved out a persistently unusual world for herself in which the demands of femininity--marriage and children, specifically--were rethought and redefined." --Lena Dunham, The New York Times, "Supple, frank, unafraid of contradictions, Athill's literary voice has all the courageous intelligence one associates with a certain type of British writer but none of the chill. This [is] the author's scrupulous reckoning of her own single and childless existence . . .her work in publishing and the thrilling discovery that she, too, could write." -- The New Yorker "Athill doesn't write as if no one is watching; she writes as if she'd never even imagined someone might watch, and therefore doesn't have a scruple to hold on to... she doesn't pass off heartbreak as a blessing in disguise, or her subsequent successful career as a silver lining. Her abandonment was more like a signpost, something that pointed her to a brambly but invigorating path." --Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker "Athill writes elegantly about the shabby gentility of her childhood and her later career as a literary editor, but the drama here is in her frankness about the struggle to rebuild a personality taken apart by sadness." --Susie Steiner, The Guardian "The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman, open-minded and open-hearted." --Hilary Mantel, Spectator "Perhaps Athill's greatest legacy was her refusal to cede to societal expectations as she carved out a persistently unusual world for herself in which the demands of femininity--marriage and children, specifically--were rethought and redefined." --Lena Dunham, The New York Times "Taken all in all, Diana Athill was a woman of parts. She endured a worthy loneliness--that of the lifelong single woman--all the while keeping company with her own working mind. Even when her subject was slight or misguided, as I sometimes thought, she wrote to make sense of things. That's what writing meant to her. Very often the work reads as though she is listening to the sound of her own life coming back at her through the words she is writing, and she is speaking to that sound. In the great tradition of personal narrative, her voice was at once her instrument and her subject." --Vivian Gornick, The New York Review of Books, "Supple, frank, unafraid of contradictions, Athill's literary voice has all the courageous intelligence one associates with a certain type of British writer but none of the chill. This [is] the author's scrupulous reckoning of her own single and childless existence . . . her work in publishing and the thrilling discovery that she, too, could write." -- The New Yorker "Athill writes elegantly about the shabby gentility of her childhood and her later career as a literary editor, but the drama here is in her frankness about the struggle to rebuild a personality taken apart by sadness." --Susie Steiner, The Guardian "The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman, open-minded and open-hearted." --Hilary Mantel, Spectator "Perhaps Athill's greatest legacy was her refusal to cede to societal expectations as she carved out a persistently unusual world for herself in which the demands of femininity--marriage and children, specifically--were rethought and redefined." --Lena Dunham, The New York Times, "The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman, open-minded and open-hearted." --Hilary Mantel, Spectator "Perhaps Athill's greatest legacy was her refusal to cede to societal expectations as she carved out a persistently unusual world for herself in which the demands of femininity--marriage and children, specifically--were rethought and redefined." --Lena Dunham, The New York Times
Afterword by
Dunham, Lena
Dewey Decimal
070.5/092/4
Synopsis
When Diana Athill, nearly forty-three and far from a household name, sat down to write Instead of a Letter , the first in her series of trailblazing memoirs, she was looking for an answer to the question "What have I lived for?" In this searching book, she recalls her child-hood on her grandparents' magnificent estate, the teenage romance that was certain to lead to marriage, her university days coinciding with the Second World War, and the sudden dissolution of her engagement, a loss that became the defining experience of the next twenty years of her life. Athill is as forthright in confessing her faults as she is in celebrating her triumphs. "From this table, with this white tea-cup, full ashtray, and small glass half full of rum beside me," she writes, "I see my story, ordinary enough though it has all been and sad though much of it was, as a success story."
LC Classification Number
PR6051.T43Z46 2022
Item description from the seller
About this seller
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Seller Feedback (139)
- i***a (4565)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseFast shipping! Careful packing! As described! Great 👍 value!! Great seller!! 👍
- 9***n (57)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseItem as described great price fast shipping packaged well will buy from again. Haven't used it yet but it so can't leave a review on how good it works but item is brand new so there's no reason why it shouldn't work greatCooling System Flush Gun PBT70801A Brand New! (#267165438697)
- a***a (16)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseNot Happy With My Purchase At All. Item Was Shipped In A Box Slightly Smaller In Height Then The Item And With Little To No Protection. Ended Up Getting Smashed And A Piece Of The Back Of The Box Is Missing. Seller Barely Contacted Me Back When I Messaged. Not Happy It Didn't Arrive As Described. In His Post It Says It's NEW And That's Not How I Recieved It.Sideshow James Bond Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore Action Figure (#266969564772)
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