What to Read and Why

by Francine Prose Narrated by Allyson Johnson

Overview

In this brilliant collection, the follow-up to her New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, the distinguished novelist, literary critic, and essayist celebrates the pleasures of reading and pays homage to the works and writers she admires above all others, from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to Jennifer Egan and Roberto Bolaño.

In an age defined by hyper-connectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. Inspiring and illuminating, What to Read and Why includes selections culled from Prose's previous essays, reviews, and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction, on works by masters of the short story, and even on books by photographers like Diane Arbus.

Prose considers why the works of literary masters such as Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Jane Austen have endured, and shares intriguing insights about modern authors whose words stimulate our minds and enlarge our lives, including Roberto Bolaño, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Jennifer Egan, and Mohsin Hamid. Prose implores us to read Mavis Gallant for her marvelously rich and compact sentences, and her meticulously rendered characters who reveal our flawed and complex human nature; Edward St. Aubyn for his elegance and sophisticated humor; and Mark Strand for his gift for depicting unlikely transformations. Here, too, are original pieces in which Prose explores the craft of writing: ""On Clarity"" and ""What Makes a Short Story.""

Written with her sharp critical analysis, wit, and enthusiasm, What to Read and Why is a celebration of literature that will give readers a new appreciation for the power and beauty of the written word.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

In the follow-up to her bestseller, READING LIKE A WRITER, author and critic Francine Prose recommends some of her favorite literary works. Narrator Allyson Johnson perfectly evokes Prose’s conversational tone. Some of these essays have been published before and some not. A handful of classic novels are covered, as well as lesser-known works and authors. Throughout her discussions, which include comments on style and content, Prose provides convincing reasons for reading the works. While this audiobook doesn’t offer much opportunity for vocal characterizations, Johnson often uses foreign accents when reading quotes from non-American authors. Her strongest contribution is a crisp, clear narration that effectively conveys Prose’s ideas. Literary enthusiasts will especially enjoy this collection, and Johnson’s composed narration makes listening even more agreeable. D.M.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

03/12/2018
With characteristic elegance, literary critic and novelist Prose (Mister Monkey) passionately pushes great books and good writing in a wide-ranging assemblage of previously published and new essays. Her thesis is simple: “What I am writing about here are the reasons why we continue to read great books, and why we continue to care.” Prose’s subjects include acclaimed novels, both old and new, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach; short story writers such as Mavis Gallant and Elizabeth Taylor; and works of fiction by authors not primarily known as fiction writers, such as poet Mark Strand and photographer Diane Arbus. In one of the previously published essays, “Complimentary Toilet Paper: Some Thoughts on Character and Language,” a close reading of John Cheever’s story “Goodbye, My Brother” reveals how it subtly “layers the language of class, race, region, and unintentional self-revelation” beneath the narrator’s self-aggrandizing words. In a new essay, “On Clarity,” Prose cites models of clear writing from Dickens, the U.S. Constitution, and Camus that reveal clarity as not just a “literary quality but a spiritual one, involving, as it does, compassion for the reader.” Prose’s stimulating collection of essays will move readers to pick up, for the first or the 15th time, the books she so enthusiastically recommends. (July)

From the Publisher

Praise for What to Read and Why: “What to Read and Why will have readers anxious to revisit these classics.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Prose’s writing sharpens, focuses and [occasionally] even thrills when she writes of the authors who move her most deeply. These essays on their own make the book worth reading and buying; they made me buy a couple of the books she most passionately endorses.”                                                                                                                                 — Wall Street Journal

“Written with warmth, wit, and a keen intellect.” — Library Journal (starred review)

Wall Street Journal

Prose’s writing sharpens, focuses and [occasionally] even thrills when she writes of the authors who move her most deeply. These essays on their own make the book worth reading and buying; they made me buy a couple of the books she most passionately endorses.”                                                                                                                                

Wall Street Journal

Prose’s writing sharpens, focuses and [occasionally] even thrills when she writes of the authors who move her most deeply. These essays on their own make the book worth reading and buying; they made me buy a couple of the books she most passionately endorses.”                                                                                                                                

Donna Seaman

A prolific and provocative writer and longtime teacher, Prose remains enthralled by books, especially fiction, fascinated by both technique and the “humanizing” power of story. A fluent and exacting critic, Prose conducts incisive, stirring readings of works spanning centuries, from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach…all the while urging readers to enter their own book bubbles and nurture body and soul.

Booklist

A prolific and provocative writer and longtime teacher, Prose remains enthralled by books, especially fiction, fascinated by both technique and the “humanizing” power of story. A fluent and exacting critic, Prose conducts incisive, stirring readings of works spanning centuries, from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach…all the while urging readers to enter their own book bubbles and nurture body and soul.

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

In the follow-up to her bestseller, READING LIKE A WRITER, author and critic Francine Prose recommends some of her favorite literary works. Narrator Allyson Johnson perfectly evokes Prose’s conversational tone. Some of these essays have been published before and some not. A handful of classic novels are covered, as well as lesser-known works and authors. Throughout her discussions, which include comments on style and content, Prose provides convincing reasons for reading the works. While this audiobook doesn’t offer much opportunity for vocal characterizations, Johnson often uses foreign accents when reading quotes from non-American authors. Her strongest contribution is a crisp, clear narration that effectively conveys Prose’s ideas. Literary enthusiasts will especially enjoy this collection, and Johnson’s composed narration makes listening even more agreeable. D.M.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-03-19
An unabashed fan of reading recommends some of her favorite books.The prolific literary critic, essayist, and novelist Prose (Mister Monkey, 2017, etc.) follows up Reading Like a Writer (2006) with an eclectic collection of previously published pieces that continue her clarion call for how books can "transport and entertain and teach us." She sets the stage for the essays with "Ten Things that Art Can Do," enthusiastically arguing that art is essential to life. She deftly mixes biography and critical analysis to demonstrate how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein challenges us "to ponder the profound issues raised by the monster and by the very fact of his existence." Prose's love of and fascination with Great Expectations, Cousin Bette, Middlemarch, Little Women, and New Grub Street, "so engrossing, so entertaining, so well made," and Mansfield Park, "arguably the greatest of Austen's novels," will have readers anxious to revisit these classics. As a fine practitioner of the art of the short story, Prose feels a kind of "messianic zeal…to make sure that [Mavis] Gallant's work continues to be read, admired—and loved." Poet Mark Strand's "remarkable" collection Mr. and Mrs. Baby offers us distant echoes of "the dark comedy of Kafka and Beckett, the lyrical imagination of Calvino and Schulz." Prose also praises the work of Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Bowles, Alice Munro, and Charles Baxter. She loves how Mohsin Hamid's Exit West, about refugees, can "alchemize the raw material of catastrophe into art." Nonfiction is represented here too, as in Gitta Sereny's "so controversial, so profoundly threatening" Cries Unheard, about an 11-year-old killer, or Diane Arbus' Revelations, where the photographer "employed the grotesque as a staging ground in her quest for the transcendent." My Struggle, the six-volume autobiographical work of Karl Ove Knausgaard, is "dense, complex, and brilliant." Others discussed include Jennifer Egan, Vladimir Nabokov, and Edward St. Aubyn as well as Roberto Bolaño's 2666—"literary genius."As Prose implores: "Drop everything. Start reading. Now."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170384020
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/03/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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