Reading Style – A Life in Sentences

Jenny Davidson teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She has published two books on eighteenth-century British literature, including Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century, and four novels. She blogs at Light Reading (jennydavidson.blogspot.com).

1. The Glimmer Factor: Anthony Burgess's 99 Novels
2. Lord Leighton, Liberace, and the Advantages of Bad Writing: Helen DeWitt, Harry Stephen Keeler, Lionel Shriver, George Eliot
3. Mouthy Pleasures and the Problem of Momentum: Gary Lutz, Lolita, Lydia Davis, Jonathan Lethem
4. The Acoustical Elegance of Aphorism: Kafka, Fielding, Austen, Flaubert
5. Tempo, Repetition, and a Taxonomy of Pacing: Peter Temple, Neil Gaiman, A. L. Kennedy, Edward P. Jones
6. Late Style: The Golden Bowl and Swann's Way
7. Disordered Sentences: Georges Perec, Roland Barthes, Wayne Koestenbaum, Luc Sante
8. Details That Linger and the Charm of Voluntary Reading: George Pelecanos, Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon
9. The Ideal Bookshelf: The Rings of Saturn and The Line of Beauty
10. The Bind of Literature and the Bind of Life: Voices from Chernobyl, Thomas Bernhard, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Notes
A Reading List
Index