Home » Reading Through the Night
Product Image

Reading Through the Night

Jane Tompkins
€23.99
Quantity:
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Jane Tompkins
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Jane Tompkins
automatic-update
awareness
Cape Cod
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGLA
Category=DNBL1
Category=DSB
Category=DSRC
communication
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fatigue
Format=BC
Format_Paperback
French
Hawaii
Kazuaki Tanahashi
knowledge
Kurt Wallander novels
Language_English
London
Naipaul
novels
PA=Temporarily unavailable
personal
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
range
self-discovery
Sir Vidia's Shadow
softlaunch
South Florida
The Blind Masseuse
The Great Railway Bazaar
The Nutcracker Suite
The Old Patagonian Express
Theroux
Trinidad

Product details

  • ISBN 9780813944517
  • Format: Paperback
  • Weight: 260g
  • Dimensions: 165 x 205mm
  • Publication Date: 12 May 2020
  • Publisher: University of Virginia Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
Description
Jane Tompkins, a renowned literature professor and award-winning author, thought she knew what reading was until, struck by a debilitating illness, she finds herself reading day and night because it is all she can do. A lifelong lover of books, she realizes for the first time that if you pay close attention to your reactions as you read, literature can become a path of self-discovery.

Tompkins's inner journey begins when she becomes captivated unexpectedly by an account of friendship between two writers to whom she'd given little thought, Paul Theroux and V. S. Naipaul. Theroux's memoir launches her on a path of introspection that stretches back to the first weeks of her life in a Bronx hospital, and forward to her relationship with her mother and the structure of her present marriage. Her reading experience, intensified by the feelings of powerlessness and loss of self that come with chronic illness, expands to include writers such as Henning Mankell and Ann Patchett, Alain de Botton, Elena Ferrante, and Anthony Trollope. As she makes her way through their books, she recognizes herself in them, stumbling across patterns of feeling and behavior that have ruled her without her knowing it—envy, a desire for fame, fear of confronting the people she loves, a longing for communion.

The reader, along with Tompkins, comes to the realization that literature can be not only a source of information and entertainment, not only a balm and a refuge, but also a key to unlocking long-forgotten memories that lead to a new understanding of one's life.
About Jane Tompkins
Jane Tompkins is a teacher and scholar known for her work on popular women's novels of the American nineteenth century. Her book on Western novels and films, West of Everything, won a prize from the American Popular Culture Association, and her memoir of teaching and learning, A Life in School, received an award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She has lectured and given workshops all over the United States and now lives in New York City, the Catskill Mountains, and South Florida.

More from this author