Letters to a Friend

Fiction & Literature, Essays & Letters, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Letters to a Friend by Diana Athill, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Diana Athill ISBN: 9780393084344
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: April 16, 2012
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Diana Athill
ISBN: 9780393084344
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: April 16, 2012
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

“What a feast. Diana’s work compels me. . . . She’s got her teeth into life!”—Alice Munro

Diana Athill is one of our great women of letters. The renowned editor of V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, and many others, she is also a celebrated memoirist whose Somewhere Towards the End was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. For thirty years, Athill corresponded with the American poet Edward Field, freely sharing jokes, pleasures, and pains with her old friend. Letters to a Friend is an epistolary memoir that describes a warm, decades-long friendship. Written with intimacy and spontaneity, candor and grace, it is perhaps more revealing than any of her celebrated books.

Edited, selected, and introduced by Athill, and annotated with her own delightful notes, this collection—rich with Athill’s characteristic wit, humor, elegance, and honesty—reveals a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase, and a wicked sense of humor. Covering her career as an editor, the adventure of her retirement, her immersion in her own writing, and her reactions to becoming unexpectedly famous in her old age—including gossip about legendary authors and mutual friends, sharp pen-portraits, and uninhibited accounts of her relationships—Letters to a Friend describes a flourishing friendship and offers a portrait of a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

“What a feast. Diana’s work compels me. . . . She’s got her teeth into life!”—Alice Munro

Diana Athill is one of our great women of letters. The renowned editor of V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, and many others, she is also a celebrated memoirist whose Somewhere Towards the End was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. For thirty years, Athill corresponded with the American poet Edward Field, freely sharing jokes, pleasures, and pains with her old friend. Letters to a Friend is an epistolary memoir that describes a warm, decades-long friendship. Written with intimacy and spontaneity, candor and grace, it is perhaps more revealing than any of her celebrated books.

Edited, selected, and introduced by Athill, and annotated with her own delightful notes, this collection—rich with Athill’s characteristic wit, humor, elegance, and honesty—reveals a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase, and a wicked sense of humor. Covering her career as an editor, the adventure of her retirement, her immersion in her own writing, and her reactions to becoming unexpectedly famous in her old age—including gossip about legendary authors and mutual friends, sharp pen-portraits, and uninhibited accounts of her relationships—Letters to a Friend describes a flourishing friendship and offers a portrait of a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Flatbellies by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920-1941 by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Diana Athill
Cover of the book A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Aftermath: Poems by Diana Athill
Cover of the book The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Changing Minds in Therapy: Emotion, Attachment, Trauma, and Neurobiology (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by Diana Athill
Cover of the book House Lights: A Novel by Diana Athill
Cover of the book A State of Freedom: A Novel by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Swan Electric: Poems by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Winter Numbers: Poems by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Diana Athill
Cover of the book Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Passionate Heart by Diana Athill
Cover of the book All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art by Diana Athill
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy