Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corriganis an American journalist, author and literary critic. She writes for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post, and is a book critic on the NPR radio program Fresh Air. In 2005, she published a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books...
books carrying guy holiday tip ups
My mailman and the UPS guy - I always have to tip them lavishly at holiday times, because they're carrying all these books every day,
books books-and-reading finding leave losing
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books
glasses sweat ballet
Flawless . . . Tightly choreographed . . . Shipstead gains entry into exclusive worlds and trains her opera glasses on private social rituals, as well as behind-the-scenes hanky panky . . . Similar to classic ballet, the power of Astonish Me arises out of the pairing of a melodramatic storyline with scrupulously executed range of movement . . . Shipstead sweeps you into this insider world of sweat, narcissism, and short-lived magic . . . Transcendent.
wall book streets
According to a Wall Street Journal article some 59 percent of Americans don t own a single book. Not a cookbook or even the Bible.
writing culture virtue
Whatever (its) virtues, (the) writing explores the culture of work but marginalizes work itself.
longing great-american worthy
It’s Fitzgerald’s thin-but-durable urge to affirm that finally makes Gatsby worthy of being our Great American Novel. Its soaring conclusion tells us that, even though Gatsby dies and the small and corrupt survive, his longing was nonetheless magnificent.
reading book people
It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book.
murder-mysteries mash-up meditation
The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a farcical fictional meditation on female beauty structured as a mash-up of an old episode of Friends, a fairy tale and a murder mystery.
doors hawks rooms
To read Helen Macdonald's memoir, H Is for Hawk, is to feel as though Emily Bronte just turned up at your door, trailing all the windy, feral outdoors into your living room.
hurt laughing-so-hard finding-yourself
A hilarious academic novel that'll send you laughing (albeit ruefully) back into the trenches of the classroom. . . . [A] mordant minor masterpiece. . . . Like the best works of farce, academic or otherwise, Dear Committee Members deftly mixes comedy with social criticism and righteous outrage. By the end, you may well find yourself laughing so hard it hurts.
two understanding important
We read literature for a lot of reasons, but two of the most compelling ones are to get out of ourselves and our life stories and – equally important – to find ourselves by understanding our own life stories more clearly in the context of others.
book character past
All of the disparate books on my list contain characters, scenes or voices that linger long past the last page of their stories.
book heart thinking
I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies." pg. xvi
book century children face life merits modern mothers paints picture questions spent trials versus work
The book wrestles with the questions modern mothers face about the merits of professional work versus life spent with children. It paints a picture of the trials and tribulations of 21st century motherhood.