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Biography: literary, Memoirs, Prose: non-fiction, Literary essays
A dazzling collection of essays by the bestselling author of What I Loved - thought-provoking, engaging, illuminating reflections on what it means to be human
From the internationally bestselling author of What I Loved and The Summer Without Men, a dazzling collection of essays written with Siri Hustvedt's customary intelligence, wit and ability to convey complex ideas in a clear and lively way.
Divided into three sections - Living, which draws on Siri's own life; Thinking, on memory, emotion and the imagination; and Looking, on art and artists - the essays range across the humanities and science as Siri explores how we see, remember, feel and interact with others, what it means to sleep, dream and speak, and what we mean by 'self'. The combination offers a profound and fascinating insight into ourselves as thinking, feeling beings.
Praise for Living, Thinking, Looking: 'A 21st-century Virginia Woolf' - Literary Review
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Her erudition, the sharp clarity of her thinking, the variety of her sources and the supple ways in which she weaves them into personal narrative, coupled with her fearlessness in the face of those aspects of the human condition which are of necessity ambiguous, infuse her work with a rare kind of quiet intellectual confidence...I'll be returning to these essays. - Melanie McGrath, Sunday Telegraph
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richly intelligent insights on every page - George Pendle, Financial Times
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Siri Hustvedt is best known as a novelist and her novels have received a deserved acclaim. But to my mind, she is even more to be admired as an essayist...there is something refreshingly straightforward about her style. It has the confidence born of complex but well digested thoughts and thus lacks the tendency to obfuscate that is the hallmark of the inferior thinker's style. - Salley Vikcers, Observer
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...she is an inspiring guide to territory where both the humanities and the sciences can throw light on the ways in which we construct meaning in our lives. - Nick Rennison, Sunday Times, Culture
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Hustvedt addresses a broad public without dumbing down her material... At once stimulating and warm-hearted, with sentences of drop-dead beauty and acuity on nearly every page. - Kirkus
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Hustvedt's deep interest in art, psychology, and neuroscience shape her brilliantly insightful novels as well as her virtuoso essays...Mystery, fact, intelligence, and enchantment flourish here. - Booklist
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exquisitely eloquent...You'll be by turns inspired, provoked, educated and enchanted. Her writing is scientifically precise and poetically elegant, and this intense compilation merits careful attention. It's a book you can return to time and time again. - Beatrice Hodgkin, Easy Living
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These essays offer thoughts on locating morality in the brain, the origins of desire and who we are when we sleep...I suggest you take this book to your favourite corner, turn off the phone and allow yourself to be reminded of the pure pleasure of using your mind. - Clare Longrigg, Psychologies
Siri Hustvedt
Siri Hustvedt is the author of seven novels, five collections of essays, a poetry collection and a memoir. Her books have been listed for major prizes, including the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize and the PEN America Literary Award. She holds a PhD from Columbia University and has been awarded honorary PhDs from Johannes Gutenberg University, Stendhal University and the University of Oslo. She is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and has written on art for the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph. Born in Minnesota, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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