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Bibliophobia: A Memoir
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"A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life."--Hua Hsu, author of Stay True
"A must for the obsessive reader."--Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect "Life Ruiners". Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah's deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives? Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.
Author: Sarah Chihaya
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Published: 02/04/2025
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.7lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.86w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780593594728
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/02/2024
Library Journal 01/01/2025 pg. 72
Booklist 01/01/2025 pg. 18
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2025
About the Author
Sarah Chihaya is a book critic, essayist, and editor. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, New York magazine, The Atlantic, and The Yale Review, among other places, and she is the co-author of The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. She has taught at Princeton University, New York University, and UC Berkeley. She is currently a contributing editor at Los Angeles Review of Books and lives in Brooklyn.
"A must for the obsessive reader."--Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect "Life Ruiners". Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah's deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives? Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.
Author: Sarah Chihaya
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Published: 02/04/2025
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.7lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.86w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780593594728
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/02/2024
Library Journal 01/01/2025 pg. 72
Booklist 01/01/2025 pg. 18
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2025
About the Author
Sarah Chihaya is a book critic, essayist, and editor. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, New York magazine, The Atlantic, and The Yale Review, among other places, and she is the co-author of The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. She has taught at Princeton University, New York University, and UC Berkeley. She is currently a contributing editor at Los Angeles Review of Books and lives in Brooklyn.
