What to Read and Why

by Francine Prose

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062397881
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/03/2018
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	696,783
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Francine Prose is the author of twenty-two works of fiction including the highly acclaimed The Vixen; Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include the highly praised Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, which has become a classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

April 1, 1947

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

B.A., Radcliffe College, 1968

Table of Contents

Author's Note xiii

Introduction xv

1 Ten Things That Art Can Do 1

2 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 15

3 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 28

4 Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Bette 41

5 George Eliot, Middlemarch 48

6 George Gissing, New Grub Street 63

7 The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant 70

8 Roberto Bolano, 2666 82

9 Complimentary Toilet Paper: Some Thoughts on Character and Language-Michael Jeffrey Lee, George Saunders, John Cheever, Denis Johnson 95

10 Edward St. Aubyn, The Patrick Melrose Novels 110

11 Paul Bowles, The Stories of Paul Bowles and The Spider's House 117

12 Patrick Hamilton, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy; The Slaves of Solitude; Hangover Square; A Story of Darkest Earl's Court 124

13 Isaac Babel 137

14 Lolita, Just the Dirty Parts: On the Erotic and Pornographic 142

15 Gitta Sereny, Cries Unheard 152

16 Andrea Canobbio, Three Light-Years 160

17 Diane Arbus: Revelations 171

18 Helen Levitt, Crosstown 183

19 Mark Strand, Mr. and Mrs. Baby 190

20 Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle 195

21 Elizabeth Taylor, Complete Short Stories 206

22 Louisa May Alcott, Little Women 210

23 Jane Austen 214

24 Charles Baxter, Believers 221

25 Deborah Levy, Swimming Home 225

26 Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women 229

27 Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach 234

28 Rebecca West 243

29 Mohsin Hamid, Exit West 248

30 On Clarity 257

31 Reiner Stach, Is That Kafka? 99 Finds 277

32 What Makes a Short Story? 288

33 In Praise of Stanley Elkin 300

Permissions 313

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/01/2018
The title of novelist (Mister Monkey), critic, and essayist (Reading Like a Writer) Prose's new guide could just as easily be "How I Read and Why," or "You've Got To Read This," which the author claims in her introduction was her suggestion. With warmth, wit, and a keen intellect, Prose dives into the long (Knausgaard), the venerable (Austen, Dickens, Eliot), the modern (Bolaño, Egan), and underappreciated (Mavis Gallant), not to mention the work of two photographers. The book begins with longer pieces praising how authors such as Flaubert beautifully convey human frailties and ugliness, then continues with descriptions of misunderstood writers, difficult writers, and the thin line between erotic and pornographic art. Slightly shorter pieces touch on the impact of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women on a young Prose, how to write clearly, the joys of reading as a solitary activity, and a revisionist view of the oeuvre of photographer Diane Arbus. Some essays have appeared elsewhere, including one that looks at photographer Helen Levitt's Crosstown. VERDICT For all readers, whether compiling your own reading list from Prose's recommendations, passing on those she's read so you don't have to, or agreeing or disagreeing with her articulate impressions. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/18.]—Liz French, Library Journal

Library Journal

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)

Publishers Weekly

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)

From the Publisher

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.”                                                                                                                                

Wall Street Journal

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.

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

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

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

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

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."

Kirkus Reviews