A01=Carol Mavor
accidental discoveries
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Anne Frank
Anne Frank's Diary
Author_Carol Mavor
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AC
Category=AGA
Category=BTH
Category=DNXH
Chantal Akerman
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Pre-order
Emily Dickinson
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
happenstance
joy
Language_English
Lolita
Nabokov
PA=Not yet available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Forthcoming
sadness
Sally Mann
softlaunch
tragic history
Product details
- ISBN 9781789149500
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 25 Nov 2024
- Publisher: Reaktion Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Carol Mavor’s first ‘happy accident’ occurred in 1980 when visiting New York’s Serendipity 3, a dessert café favoured by Andy Warhol. Mavor’s memory of eating a frozen hot chocolate became food for thought, nurturing accidental discoveries about art and literature.
The book’s happy, yet dark, accidents include Anne Frank’s journal, discovered in the Secret Annex after the Second World War; Emily Dickinson’s poems, scribbled on salvaged envelopes, hidden in a drawer; and Lolita, rescued from incineration by Nabokov’s wife Véra.
Mavor’s writing is dependent on serendipity’s layers of happenstance, rousing feelings of something that she did not exactly know she was looking for until she found it. All history is about loss, and in the case of this book, much of it is tragic – but Serendipity also offers the happiness that can be found in unexpected discoveries.
Carol Mavor is Emeritus Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Manchester. She has published widely on photography, cinema, colour and childhood. Her books include Aurelia: Art and Literature Through the Mouth of the Fairy Tale (Reaktion, 2017).
