{"product_id":"am-i-alone-here-notes-on-living-to-read-and-reading-to-live-paperback","title":"Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003ePeter Orner\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\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 \u003c\/p\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.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePeter Orner\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of two novels, \u003ci\u003eLove and Shame and Love\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo\u003c\/i\u003e, and two story collections, \u003ci\u003eLast Car Over the Sagamore Bridge\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEsther Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. His work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBest American Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. A recipient of Guggenheim and Lannan Foundation Fellowships, as well as a Fulbright to Namibia, Orner has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of Montana, Northwestern, and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. He is currently on the faculty of San Francisco State University and a member of the Bolinas Volunteer Fire Department.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 276\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.88 x 8.25 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 25, 2016\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51769913573664,"sku":"9781936787258","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/4177695421ccb012c188c89759ea601b.webp?v=1780359644","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/am-i-alone-here-notes-on-living-to-read-and-reading-to-live-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}