Suppose a Sentence

Name: Suppose a Sentence
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Brian Dillon
ISBN: 9781666110388

Author: Brian Dillon

Narrator: Peter Berkrot

Unabridged: 6 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/24/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Language Arts

Synopsis

A captivating meditation on the power of the sentence by the author of Essayism, a 2018 New Yorker book of the year.

In Suppose a Sentence, Brian Dillon, whom John Banville has called "a literary flâneur in the tradition of Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin," has written a sequel of sorts to Essayism, turning his attention to the oblique and complex pleasures of the sentence. A series of essays prompted by a single sentence—from Shakespeare to James Baldwin, John Ruskin to Joan Didion—this new book explores style, voice, and language, along with the subjectivity of reading. Both an exercise in practical criticism and a set of experiments or challenges, Suppose a Sentence is a polemical and personal reflection on the art of the sentence in literature.

About Brian Dillon

Brian Dillon was born in Dublin in 1969. His books include Essayism, The Great Explosion (shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize), Objects in This Mirror, I Am Sitting in a Room, Sanctuary, Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize), and In the Dark Room, which won the Irish Book Award for nonfiction. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Bookforum, frieze, and Artforum. He is the UK editor of Cabinet magazine and teaches creative writing at Queen Mary University of London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Adam on August 22, 2020

I really, really like this joyful, varied look at 27 sentences by 27 writers, ranging from De Quincey to Baldwin to Jaeggy and beyond. Dillon takes a different approach with each essay, and often provides a bit of biography as well, so it's educational beyond the craft level. Recommended......more

Goodreads review by Matthew Ted on June 02, 2021

55th book of 2021. Since returning from university my mother has taken it upon herself to install a good amount of mocking towards me. It is always good-natured and met with laughter. I said to her on Wednesday, “I am going to the library now to pick up my reservation. A book about sentences! Sentenc......more

Goodreads review by W.D. on November 04, 2021

I wanted to like this more than I did, as when it did manage to strike home (when the supposed analysandum, the sentence in question, enlarged and enlivened by sagely selected, a propos supportive context, was also robustiously enough built to withstand the 1,000 watt glare of the analyst's laser-gu......more

Goodreads review by Marcus on November 24, 2020

Fascinating is the best word to describe this book. I’m not sure most of us take the time to read closely. By that I mean really looking at the detail both on the page, the structure, the precise words used or the way these work with the punctuation. Do we ever stop to ask if what we just read reall......more