The Novel
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
The Novel: A Survival Skill radically reevaluates traditional literary criticism offering an exciting account of what is really at stake in the business of writing and reading.
Writers and LiteratureSeries
This series delves into the captivating world of creators and their literary output. It explores the lives, inspirations, and often tumultuous journeys of the authors who have shaped our literary landscape. Readers can expect a deep dive into the creative process and the destinies of those who brought us enduring stories.
Recommended Reading Order
Where I'm Reading from: The Changing World of Books
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Why do we need fiction? Why do books need to be printed on paper, copyrighted, read to the finish? Do we read to challenge our vision of the world or to confirm it? Has novel writing turned into a job like any other? In Where I’m Reading From, the internationally acclaimed novelist and critic Tim Parks ranges over a lifetime of critical reading—from Leopardi, Dickens, and Chekhov, to Woolf, Lawrence, and Bernhard, and on to contemporary work by Jonathan Franzen, Peter Stamm, and many others—to overturn many of our long-held assumptions about literature and its purpose. In thirty-eight interlocking essays, Where I’m Reading From examines the rise of the “global” novel and the disappearance of literary styles that do not travel; the changing vocation of the writer today; the increasingly paradoxical effects of translation; the growing stasis of literary criticism; and the problematic relationship between writers’ lives and their work. Through dazzling close readings and probing self-examination, Parks wonders whether writers—and readers—can escape the twin pressures of the new global system and the novel that has become its emblematic genre.