Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays
by Elisa Gabbert
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Description
Contagiously curious essays on reading, art, and the life of the mind, from the acclaimed author of The Unreality of Memory. Who are we when we read? When we journal? Are we more ourselves alone or with friends? Right now or in memory? How does time transform us and the art we love? In sixteen dazzling, expansive essays, the acclaimed essayist and poet Elisa Gabbert explores a life lived alongside books of all kinds: dog-eared and destroyed, cherished and discarded, classic and clichėd, show more familiar and profoundly new. She turns her witty, searching mind to the writers she admires, from Plath to Proust, and the themes that bind them--chance, freedom, envy, ambition, nostalgia, and happiness. She takes us to the strange edges of art and culture, from hair metal to surf movies to party fiction. Any Person Is the Only Self is a love letter to literature and to life, inviting us to think alongside one of our most thrilling and versatile critics. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I enjoy her essays on the whole. She is smart and funny. I think I liked the last collection ("The Unreality Of Memory") a bit more because the topics were a little more varied and farther afield than the focus of this collection.
Most of all, I like when she just winds off from a topic into another and another...that is always fun.
I think of all the pieces, "Somethingness" was my favorite, whereas hearing her extol the virtues of "Point Break" was a bit of a waste of time..
Most of all, I like when she just winds off from a topic into another and another...that is always fun.
I think of all the pieces, "Somethingness" was my favorite, whereas hearing her extol the virtues of "Point Break" was a bit of a waste of time..
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Author Information
9+ Works 460 Members
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Common Knowledge
- Epigraph
- No, no, there is nothing in the world that can be imagined in advance, not the slightest thing. Everything is made up of so many unique particulars that are impossible to foresee. -Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Notebooks of... (show all) Malte Laurids Brigge
- First words
- I used to go to a public library almost weekly. It was the central branch in Denver, a sprawling building on the edge of downtown, near the capitol, the art museum, and the courthouse where I got married. I was always stoppin... (show all)g in to pick up a row of holds, or to browse the new releases, or to wander the fiction stacks on the second floor, or to check out the little used-book shop near the rear entrance, which was open at odd hours. But my favorite spot was a shelf near the borrower services desk, marked with a sign reading RECENTLY RETURNED. -On Recently Returned Books
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 814.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3607.A227 A84
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 99
- Popularity
- 325,149
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.67)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
