Proved on the Pulses: On the Essay and its Literary Cousins

Archive for June, 2010

Nathalie Foy’s Books on Books

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

A lovely and unexpected commendation from Nathalie Foy at Books on Books. (Unexpected because it occurs in the midst of her review of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company.)

“One of my favourite books of the past year is Susan Olding’s Pathologies: A Life in Essays.  She takes the personal essay to new places, puts it to interesting uses, gives it a fresh shape.  It is Olding’s form that is so often the reward of reading her essays.  They are fresh and startling and often biting.  I like that.”

Thank you, Nathalie. And thank you also for the inspired decision to focus on books about books in your blog.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Essay: One

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds

“A loose sally of the mind. An irregular, undigested piece.”  (Samuel Johnson, himself an essayist.)

Known for its perambulating, meandering, (seemingly) artless construction.