time bites - Softcover

Lessing, Doris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007179863 ISBN 13: 9780007179862

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub Date :2005-10-17 Pages: 384 Language: English Publisher: HarperCollins UK Assembled here for the first time in book form are the very best occasional writings from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.A selection of the very best of Doris Lessings essays: articles on writers as diverse as Jane Austen. Muriel Spark. Virginia Woolf. DH Lawrence and Mikael Bulgakov sit alongside autobiographical looks at the beliefs that have shaped Lessing's thinking There are adoring and adorable pieces on the beloved cats that. she has allowed to share her life. and insightful looks at the Africa in which she grew up. and London and England. the place where she made her home.The range of subjects. cultures and periods within these essays is huge. but the collection is utterly consistent in one key regard:. Doris Lessing's clear-eyed vision and clearly expressed prose a...

About this title

About the Author

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.

From Publishers Weekly

Arguably the grande dame of English letters—the list of her published works comes to 60-plus—Lessing has always been outspoken about literature, politics and social issues. The 65 essays and book reviews collected here range over those topics and others, all declaimed in Lessing's brisk, wry voice and articulated with pragmatic intelligence. Her literary reviews always amplify the book at hand; the pieces on Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy and Jane Austen resonate with fresh insight. Her enthusiastic reconsiderations of authors who are little read today, including Olive Schreiner, George Meredith, A.E. Coppard and Walter de la Mare, may pique readers' curiosity. Another obscure book, about an American prostitute, comes to light in the fascinating "The Maimie Papers." Six essays discuss the writer Idries Shah and his books about the mysteries and consolations of Sufism, which, Lessing claims, were "like a depth charge" and fulfilled all her philosophical and spiritual needs. Not every reader will be convinced. There's a tirade against Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia was Lessing's homeland) and a coruscating indictment of American complacency before 9/11. The main theme, whether addressed overtly or underlying her literary criticism, is the indispensable place of books in the life of an educated person and an enlightened culture. Hers is a clarion call. (Dec.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007179863
• ISBN 13: 9780007179862
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 386