Any Person is the Only Self, Elisa Gabbert
Any Person is the Only Self, Elisa Gabbert
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Any Person is the Only Self
Essays

Author: Elisa Gabbert

Narrator: Elisa Gabbert

Unabridged: 7 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/11/2024

Synopsis

Contagiously curious essays on reading, art, and the life of the mind, from the acclaimed author of The Unreality of Memory.
Who are we when we read? When we journal? Are we more ourselves alone or with friends? Right now or in memory? How does time transform us and the art we love?
In sixteen dazzling, expansive essays, the acclaimed essayist and poet Elisa Gabbert explores a life lived alongside books of all kinds: dog-eared and destroyed, cherished and discarded, classic and clichėd, familiar and profoundly new. She turns her witty, searching mind to the writers she admires, from Plath to Proust, and the themes that bind them―chance, freedom, envy, ambition, nostalgia, and happiness. She takes us to the strange edges of art and culture, from hair metal to surf movies to party fiction. Any Person Is the Only Self is a love letter to literature and to life, inviting us to think alongside one of our most thrilling and versatile critics.

About Elisa Gabbert

Elisa Gabbert is the author of the poetry collections, L'Heure Bleue, The Self Unstable, and The French Exit. Her debut collection of essays, The Word Pretty, was published in 2018. The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. Gabbert's work has appeared in the New Yorker, Boston Review, the Paris Review Daily, Pacific Standard, Guernica, the Awl, Electric Literature, the Harvard Review, and many other venues. She lives in Denver.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kaleigh on June 11, 2024

Some essays in this collection are soooo great like "Somethingness (or, Why Write?)" which explores various writers' answers to the titular question, "The Uncanny Child" on the subject of becoming aware of the self as an individual, and "Same River, Same Man" on rereading old favorite books. I also......more

Goodreads review by Troy on July 03, 2024

As soon as I read the synopsis for this essay collection, I knew it was totally in my wheelhouse -- I mean, essays about books, reading, writing, memory, the self? Sign me the f up! Which is why I acquired and read it as fast as I possibly could. I'm delighted to say that it was an extremely pleasur......more

Goodreads review by Janelle on May 11, 2024

This is an enjoyable collection of essays about reading, writing, surviving lockdown, musings on writers and writing, music, human contact, libraries, and more. It reads well particularly early but I did start to get bored towards the end, Phil Collins? Hair metal music of the 80s? Point Break the m......more

Goodreads review by Cam on February 03, 2024

Great, accessible collection that balances philosophy and humour. I loved the meandering nature of the essays, which all come back to the love and pleasure of reading in some way or another. An easy handsell.......more

Goodreads review by cass on April 18, 2024

this was an enjoyable essay collection to read before bed, but it did leave me wanting just a little bit more of gabbert’s own experience and personality to shine through. while i appreciated her ability to weave together so many different sources in these essays on reading and writing, at times i f......more

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