Sontag, Susan A Susan Sontag Reader ISBN 13: 9780374272166

A Susan Sontag Reader - Hardcover

9780374272166: A Susan Sontag Reader
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Susan Sontag occupies a special place in Modern American letters. She has become our most important critic, while her brilliant novels and short fiction are, at long last, getting the recognition they deserve. Sontag is above all a writer, which is only to say that, though the form may differ, there is an essential unity in all her work. The truth of this is perhaps more evident in A Susan Sontag Reader than in any of Sontag's individual books. The writer selected a sampling of her work, meaning the choice both to reflect accurately a career and also to guide the reader toward those qualities and concerns which she prizes in her own writing.

A Susan Sontag Reader is arranged chronologically and draws on most of Sontag's books. There are selections from her two novels, The Benefactor and Death Kit, and from her collections of short stories, I, etcetera. The famous essays from the 1960s--"Against Interpretation," "Notes on Camp," and "On Style"--which established Sontag's reputation and can be fairly said to have shaped the cultural views of a generation are included, as are selctions from her two subsequent volumes of essays, Styles of Radical Will and Under the Sign of Satury.A part of Sontag's best-selling On Photography is also included.

It is astonishing to read these works when they are detached from the books they appeared in and offered instead in the order in which Sontag wrote them. The connections between various literary forms, the progression of themes, are revealed in often startling ways. Moreover, Sontag has included a long interview in which she moves mroe informally over the whole range of her concerns and of her work. The volume ends with "Writing Itself," a previously uncollected essay on Roland Barthes which, in the eyes of many, is one of Sontag's finest achievements.

This collection is, in a sense, both a self-potrait and a key for a reader to understand the work of one of the most imporant writers of our time.

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About the Author:
Susan Sontag was the author of four novels, including In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for Fiction; a collection of stories; several plays; and seven works of nonfiction. She died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Review:
“A solid one-volume introduction to a major writer.” ―Kirkus Reviews

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  • PublisherFarrar Straus & Giroux
  • Publication date1982
  • ISBN 10 0374272166
  • ISBN 13 9780374272166
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages446
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Sontag, Susan (Author) & Hardwick, Elizabeth (Contributor)
ISBN 10: 0374272166 ISBN 13: 9780374272166
Used Hardcover First Edition Signed Quantity: 1
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ModernRare
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: As New. 1st Edition. 1st Printing. Signed. 446 pages. Published in 1982. Landmark retrospective collection of the author's work. Now considered a late-modern classic. Limited Slipcased Edition of 350 numbered and signed copies. The true First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the regular trade edition (which has the same ISBN). The Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by FSG: Regular-sized volume format. Blue linen cloth boards with gilt titles embossed on the spine, as issued. Text by Susan Sontag. Introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick. Cream ribbed-paper and cloth slipcase. In publisher's original shrinkwrap. Printed on pristine-white, archival stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents, in its collectible format, "A Susan Sontag Reader". The indispensable retrospective of the author's finest and most representative work in mid-career. Includes selections from her novels and previous collections of essays as well as two, previously unpublished pieces in book form: The controversial Salmagundi Interview and the obituary-essay, "Writing Itself: On Roland Barthes". There is no American writer-intellectual of the last fifty years of the 20th century who wrote about the fundamental - and urgent - issues she raised with the same ardor, commitment, and intelligence. "The inner life tends to mistrust the new. A strongly developed inner life will be particularly resistant to the new. We are told we must choose, the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new? We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested all our past, our wisdom, our memories, our sadness, our sense of realism. We cannot do without faith in the new, because in what is new is invested all our energy, our capacity for optimism, our blind biological yearnings, our ability to forget, the healing ability that makes reconciliation possible" (Susan Sontag). An absolute "must-have" title for Susan Sontag collectors. This is a copy of the Limited Slipcased Edition, indicated/numbered as such on the Front Limitation Page. It is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen by Susan Sontag. This title is a great collection. This is one of few copies of the Limited Edition still available online, is still in the publisher's original shrinkwrap, and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. It is the single most beautiful copy we have ever seen. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for "On Photography", the National Book Award in 2000 for "In America", and the Jerusalem Prize in 2001. Shimon Peres, in awarding the Jerusalem Prize, described Sontag as "one of the world's finest writers and greatest minds". One of the most influential and important American writer-intellectuals of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER SUSAN SONTAG TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0374272166. Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 22847

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