{"product_id":"a-life-of-ones-own-9781474621229","title":"A Life of Ones Own","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI took off my wedding ring \u003c\/i\u003e-\u003ci\u003e a gold band with half a line of ''Morning Song'' by Sylvia Plath etched inside \u003c\/i\u003e- \u003ci\u003eand for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn''t throw the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNewly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eA Life of One''s Own\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA beautiful, deeply philosophical book about reading as a form of existential consolation . . . wonderfully inconclusive, moving and original . . . a brilliant exploration of uncertainty and a compelling anti-guide to art and life -- Joanna Kavenna * LITERARY REVIEW *\u003cbr\u003eA meditation, by turns glorious and aching, on what it means to be a woman and to try to be free -- AMIA SRINIVASAN, author of THE RIGHT TO SEX\u003cbr\u003eAcute and tender . . . alive with discovery and desire * OBSERVER *\u003cbr\u003eJoanna Biggs is an unmissable writer. She gives new scope and fresh meaning to the idea of literary empathy -- ANDREW O'HAGAN, author of MAYFLIES\u003cbr\u003e[Biggs] explores how exceptional writers of the past might guide today's women in charting a path after life-altering events. The result is a moving biblio-memoir that's a gift to readers of all ages. Engaging . . . poignant . . . uplifting * WASHINGTON POST *\u003cbr\u003eI adored this book. I started turning down pages to note favourite parts, then found myself turning down almost every other page. It's such a generous, enlivening work, destined to be passed from friend to friend for a long time to come -- MEGAN HUNTER, author of THE END WE START FROM\u003cbr\u003e[An] absorbing, eccentric book. Alongside Biggs's search for a way to be a woman apart from being a wife is her search for a way to be a writer apart from being a critic. On the evidence of \u003ci\u003eA Life of One's Own\u003c\/i\u003e, she has found it -- Lauren Michele Jackson * NEW YORKER *\u003cbr\u003eJoanna Biggs is one of our sharpest critics and wisest interrogators of how to live. This is a deeply moving and invigorating book -- FRANCESCA WADE, author of SQUARE HAUNTING\u003cbr\u003eTo make sense of and find a shape to one's life within the context of one's literary predecessors is the project of Biggs's brilliant book, which combines incisive biographies with a personal story of starting over. This book reframed my own life in the most startling and revealing ways, illuminating complicated desires and lifelong debates via the absorbing stories of nine women authors who I now consider sisters, teachers, kin. A deeply moving meditation on reading and writing, friendship, desire, the life of the mind, and the woman writer's perennial yearning to be free -- RACHEL YODER, author of NIGHTBITCH\u003cbr\u003eWritten with profound sensitivity and a singular eye for detail, \u003ci\u003eA Life of One's Own \u003c\/i\u003eis engrossing, surprising and moving reading for anyone interested in what it means to write, and to live -- LAUREN OYLER, author of FAKE ACCOUNTS\u003cbr\u003eSuch beautiful, meaningful writing on the pursuit of beauty and meaning. It's the book equivalent of sinking into a hot bath after a difficult day -- EMMA FORREST, author of BUSY BEING FREE\u003cbr\u003eIn this trenchant and wide-ranging book, Biggs writes about starting over after divorce while seeking wisdom from a canon of great female authors. In Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, George Eliot, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante and others, Biggs finds inspiration, advice and cautionary tales that shade her experience * NEW YORK TIMES (19 Works of Nonfiction to Read This Spring) *\u003cbr\u003eBook lovers will swoon over this smart meditation on life and writing * PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY *\u003cbr\u003eA powerful collective portrait of women writers who are often only studied via their isolated exceptionalism . . . An enlightening meditation on the intersections of art and freedom * KIRKUS *\u003cbr\u003eBy laying down the conventional tools of contemporary criticism, that arsenal of theories and various lenses (Marxist, feminist, Lacanian etc.), Biggs meets us on equal terms, as a fellow reader - a quietly defiant act. If personal criticism like \u003ci\u003eA Life of One's Own \u003c\/i\u003esucceeds in returning the craft to its original purpose, and thus to a larger audience, then it is very welcome -- Charlotte Stroud * ENGELSBERG IDEAS *\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48867260858711,"sku":"9781474621229","price":18.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/a-life-of-ones-own-9781474621229","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}