Description
Book SynopsisThe novelist, critic, and book commentator from National Public Radio's All Things Considered looks back at some of the thousands of books he has read, reviewed, and loved, reflecting on the authors and works that have influenced him in his own writing and then focusing his attention on the process of writing itself.
Trade ReviewThe learned, lively, and handsomely crafted essays in this collection revive some neglected authors as varied as the dazzling Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, the magisterial Tom Wolfe (the elder), and the Russian memoirist Lidiya Ginsburg... [Cheuse's] essays are instructive, his enthusiasm contagious, his views unobjectionable. -- Ulrich Baer, New York University Library Journal Steady, but also passionate, boundlessly receptive, but willing to tender strong judgment, Alan Cheuse is the reader any writer would want. For the same reasons, he is a writer serious readers will feel instantly connected to. Listening to the Page is a generous and wise and quietly instructive book of essays. -- Sven Birkerts This is a fascinating book-and why not? Cheuse has probably read as much as anyone ever. -- Marvin J. LaHood World Literature Today Despite his several novels and story collections, Alan Cheuse remains best known as the book critic on the public radio show 'All Things Considered.' The essays collected in Listening to the Page are longer and deeper than his pithy radio reviews and reveal a commitment to reading as a passionate engagement with life. -- Jacob Molyneux San Francisco Chronicle [An] incisive and vivifying essay collection... Cheuse is wholly engaged and creative, stoking readers' hunger and helping them understand the bounty of their pursuit. Booklist Learned, lively, and handsomely crafted essays. -- Ulrich Baer Library Journal
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Getting Started; or, Two Thousand Books Part 1. Reading 1. Writing It Down for James: Some Thoughts on Reading Toward the Millennium 2. Books in Flames: A View of Latin American Literature 3. The Lost Books 4. Hamlet in Haiti: Style in Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World 5. Traces of Light: The Paradoxes of Narrative Painting and Pictorial Fiction 6. Truth as Fiction: Or, the Tail of the Monstrous Peacock 7. The Consolation of Art Part 2. Rereading 8. You Can Read Wolfe Again 9. Stories of Deep Delight 10. Of Steinbeck and Salinas 11. The Return of James Agee 12. Mario Vargas Llosa and Conversation in the Cathedral: The Question of Naturalism 13. Where Is She Going? Where Has She Been?: Elizabeth Tallent's "No One's a Mystery" and the Poetry of Female Initiation 14. A Wintry Saga 15. Bernard and Juliet: Romance and Desire in Malamud's High Art 16. Fitzgerald's Christmas Carol, or the Burden of "The Camel's Back" 17. A Note on Landscape in All the Pretty Horses 18. Rereading Traven Part 3. Writing 19. Confessions of an Ex-Minimalist 20. On the Contemporary 21. Of the Making of Books 22. Voices: A Conversation
