Was She Pretty?

Shapton, Leanne

ISBN 10: 1770462279 / ISBN 13: 9781770462274

Published by Drawn and Quarterly, 2016

About this Item

Fast Free Shipping â Good condition. It may show normal signs of use, such as light writing, highlighting, or library markings, but all pages are intact and the book is fully readable. A solid, complete copy that's ready to enjoy.

Seller Inventory # GWV.1770462279.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Was She Pretty?
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1770462279
• ISBN 13: 9781770462274
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

A dreamy exploration of relationships and jealousy . . . pithy and deadpan . . . It's no self-help book." --Salon

What's left when a relationship ends? Where does jealousy come from? Delicately and sensitively, Leanne Shapton (Swimming Studies) ruminates on ex-lovers, and our lovers' ex-lovers. A few expressive pencil lines outline a long-abandoned winter coat here, an ineffably alluring Mona Lisa smile there. Each double page describes the way all exes are captured: as impossible to live up to as a Polaroid taken at a flattering angle.

This new paperback edition of Was She Pretty? brings the reader deep into a circle of phantoms: its intimate liaisons, embarrassing secrets, and sardonic anecdotes. Shapton introduces the obsessives and the dilettantes, the poets and the actresses, the people with great hair and the people with idiosyncratic clothes. As funny as it is insightful, Was She Pretty? speaks to a central human concern: How do we compare? Elegantly drawn and perfectly narrated, the pages of Was She Pretty? are a testimonial to the power of observation and misapprehension.

About the Author

Leanne Shapton is an author, artist, illustrator and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at The New York Review of Books. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books. Shapton is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Shapton is the author of nine books: Toronto; Was She Pretty?; Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry; Native Trees of Canada; Sunday Night Movies; Swimming Studies; Guest Book: Ghost Stories; In Cars and Toys Talking, a children’s book. Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critic’s Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.