Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader is Vivian Gornicks celebration of passionate reading, of returning again and again to the books that have shaped her at crucial points in her life. In nine essays that traverse literary criticism, memoir, and biography, one of our most celebrated critics writes about the importance of reading - and re-reading - as life progresses. Gornick finds herself in contradictory characters within D. H. Lawrences Sons and Lovers, assesses womanhood in Colettes The Vagabond and The Shackle, and considers the veracity of memory in Marguerite Durass The Lover. She revisits Great War novels by J. L. Carr and Pat Barker, uncovers the psychological complexity of Elizabeth Bowens prose, and soaks in Natalia Ginzburg, a writer whose work has often made me love life more. After adopting two cats, whose erratic behavior she finds vexing, she discovers Doris Lessings Particularly Cats. Guided by Gornicks trademark verve and insight, Unfinished Business is a masterful appreciation of literatures power to illuminate our lives from a peerless writer and thinker who still read[s] to feel the power of Life with a capital L.