Books & Books is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize winning author Alison Lurie on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 6pm for a reading and book signing of her latest collection of essays, WORDS AND WORLDS.
Alison Lurie’s view of the world has always been both critical and affectionate, and often also humorous. This candid, wide-ranging collection of essays, WORDS AND WORLDS: From Autobiography to Zippers begins with an account of Lurie’s childhood as an odd-looking, awkward little girl who liked making up stories to a portrait of her life at Radcliffe during World War II when the smartest women in the country were treated like second-class citizens, the most scholarly among them expected to work in factories to support the war effort. Then it travels to the years when even her family and friends suggested that she should give up collecting rejection slips for her writing and just enjoy having somehow acquired a husband and children.She writes about some of the many authors, editors, artists and great thinkers she has known well, including Robert Silver of The New York Review of Books, illustrator Edward Gorey and the poet James Merrill, and there is an entertaining eye-witness account of a now-famous British production of Hamlet.
There are also perceptive examinations of classic fairy tales and famous children’s books like Babar, Pinocchio, and Harry Potter; a report on modern witchcraft; and amusing analyses of the peculiar languages of fashion and literary deconstruction. WORDS AND WORLDS is a collection of fine personal essays that is a crowning reminiscence from a much beloved and admired writer.