I loved this documentary! If you at all think you would enjoy it, make it a point to see it.
Obviously, if you love fashion, you'll enjoy meeting this man who so ardently loves fashion as well.
But what I admired so much about him was his generous and egalitarian spirit. It seems to me to be something truly special, and I was utterly charmed.
Bill Cunningham is a street photographer who writes a column for the New York Times. I've not often seen this column as I rarely have a print copy of the Times in my hand. (Sadly, this is part of what's lost in not having a print copy in your hand; you can read a specific article online but you can't enjoy the serendipity of discovery.) And, truly, I don't have his eye for fashion nor do I feel the excitement that he does about it although I do understand it. It is wonderful: exuberant and vital.
In the film, Cunningham says that fashion is the armor that we wear to protect ourselves, but also, obviously, it's a way that we express ourselves and that's wonderful. In this film, New York is where there are so many different people as well as so many people who love fashion and this film captures that.
The film shows Cunningham at work, both as a photographer and in designing the layout of his column at the Times. It was wonderful to see him at work, pairing two photos that had in common the same gesture captured in a photo taken on the fly. What I love about his photo spreads are the color, the composition, the freshness and immediacy. Of course, through his process of selection -- both in taking his photos, selecting photos for publication, and in arranging them -- his photo spreads are his self-expression, as well. This film captures his wonderful enthusiasm for design, and an unpretentious passion for people.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Purple Cow is a neat little book. It's full of short essays about the importance of a innovative marketing.
Godin argues that marketing used to be buying print, TV and radio ads. A company created a product, and it was the marketing department's job to sell it, mostly by buying ads.
Today, customers tune out ads, and marketing has to change. He advocates ideas that have been advanced by many others, sometimes under different names.
He advocates using customer loyalty and enthusiasm to get more customers. He points out that word-of-mouth is the single most effective form of marketing. Haven't you turned to a friend for advice on what to buy? Why? It's fast, it's easy, it builds a relationship, buying the product your friends have already bought makes you feel like one of the gang, and it's sometimes the very best method for making a purchasing decision.
He also talks about the importance of setting yourself apart from the competition. It might be by finding a special niche - providing a product or service first. It might be by offering the best product, or by offering the most exclusive product, or by offering the cheapest product -- or the best service. But then, you really have to provide the service.
Marketing, he suggests, needs above all to be distinctive to make itself heard amid the din of marketing messages. He talks about outrageousness. The example he uses here is a slogan for the restaurant chain, Hooters: "Delightfully tacky, always unrefined." Being tacky and unrefined will definitely turn some customers off. But it will also turn some customers on. Ask yourself: which are your customers? Like to be turned on or turned off? You don't know? Find out! Put yourself in their shoes!
He argues that you should think about outrageousness, if only as an exercise in leaping out of the box of your current thinking. It's definitely not the right strategy for every product or every customer. His point is to include every possibility as an aid to creativity and innovative synthesis.
Above all, he argues, abandon the illusion that you can avoid risk altogether by continuing to do what you're already doing, or what worked in the past, or what your competitor is doing, or what seems safely conventional or unlikely to offend. The old adage of making one product for everyone doesn't work anymore. He argues, persuasively, that choosing a marketing strategy because it's safe is less likely to work in this environment, in part because the old rules have been exploded and things are changing so fast. The only safe course, he argues, is to fight hard by taking some chances and setting yourself apart from the pack.
Interestingly, he talks about how cell phones have become boring now that everyone who needs one has one and everyone who merely wants one has one too. He talks about Motorola and how phone manufacturers are looking for the next big innovation. This seems particularly prescient in a post-iPhone world (this book was originally published in 2002).
He talks about the importance of design and how marketing might once have been primarily about how to position the product in the marketplace but is now every aspect of the product, including its design. He advocates giving designers a place on the marketing team. Steve Jobs' success would seem to be a case in point.
What's another way to set yourself apart? Be honest! He cites an example in which McDonald's in France suggested to consumers that they should not eat at McDonald's more often than once a week, an approach that reflected an awareness of different cultural assumptions about food in France.
Godin argues the importance of passion: he explains that it's vitally important to understand the needs and wants of the consumer, and if you're a surfboard company it makes sense to have a staff full of surfers. If you're a dialysis machine manufacturer, it may not be possible to staff your marketing department with dialysis patients but you can still spend time talking to your customers and use your imagination to put yourself in their place and imagine what they need.
The significance of the title is this: on vacation with his family in the country, he saw that his entire family was charmed by some cows they saw. As they continued on their journey, they saw many more cows and cows started to lose their charm. After they'd seen so many cows, the only new cow that would be likely to interest them would be a purple cow!
Seth Godin wants you, your product, and your company to be a purple cow!
Godin addresses himself to marketers and suggests that they use this fun and easy-to-read book full of mini-case histories of marketing efforts to convince managers and troops that this is the way forward. Recent history shows that he's right.
Godin argues that marketing used to be buying print, TV and radio ads. A company created a product, and it was the marketing department's job to sell it, mostly by buying ads.
Today, customers tune out ads, and marketing has to change. He advocates ideas that have been advanced by many others, sometimes under different names.
He advocates using customer loyalty and enthusiasm to get more customers. He points out that word-of-mouth is the single most effective form of marketing. Haven't you turned to a friend for advice on what to buy? Why? It's fast, it's easy, it builds a relationship, buying the product your friends have already bought makes you feel like one of the gang, and it's sometimes the very best method for making a purchasing decision.
He also talks about the importance of setting yourself apart from the competition. It might be by finding a special niche - providing a product or service first. It might be by offering the best product, or by offering the most exclusive product, or by offering the cheapest product -- or the best service. But then, you really have to provide the service.
Marketing, he suggests, needs above all to be distinctive to make itself heard amid the din of marketing messages. He talks about outrageousness. The example he uses here is a slogan for the restaurant chain, Hooters: "Delightfully tacky, always unrefined." Being tacky and unrefined will definitely turn some customers off. But it will also turn some customers on. Ask yourself: which are your customers? Like to be turned on or turned off? You don't know? Find out! Put yourself in their shoes!
He argues that you should think about outrageousness, if only as an exercise in leaping out of the box of your current thinking. It's definitely not the right strategy for every product or every customer. His point is to include every possibility as an aid to creativity and innovative synthesis.
Above all, he argues, abandon the illusion that you can avoid risk altogether by continuing to do what you're already doing, or what worked in the past, or what your competitor is doing, or what seems safely conventional or unlikely to offend. The old adage of making one product for everyone doesn't work anymore. He argues, persuasively, that choosing a marketing strategy because it's safe is less likely to work in this environment, in part because the old rules have been exploded and things are changing so fast. The only safe course, he argues, is to fight hard by taking some chances and setting yourself apart from the pack.
Interestingly, he talks about how cell phones have become boring now that everyone who needs one has one and everyone who merely wants one has one too. He talks about Motorola and how phone manufacturers are looking for the next big innovation. This seems particularly prescient in a post-iPhone world (this book was originally published in 2002).
He talks about the importance of design and how marketing might once have been primarily about how to position the product in the marketplace but is now every aspect of the product, including its design. He advocates giving designers a place on the marketing team. Steve Jobs' success would seem to be a case in point.
What's another way to set yourself apart? Be honest! He cites an example in which McDonald's in France suggested to consumers that they should not eat at McDonald's more often than once a week, an approach that reflected an awareness of different cultural assumptions about food in France.
Godin argues the importance of passion: he explains that it's vitally important to understand the needs and wants of the consumer, and if you're a surfboard company it makes sense to have a staff full of surfers. If you're a dialysis machine manufacturer, it may not be possible to staff your marketing department with dialysis patients but you can still spend time talking to your customers and use your imagination to put yourself in their place and imagine what they need.
The significance of the title is this: on vacation with his family in the country, he saw that his entire family was charmed by some cows they saw. As they continued on their journey, they saw many more cows and cows started to lose their charm. After they'd seen so many cows, the only new cow that would be likely to interest them would be a purple cow!
Seth Godin wants you, your product, and your company to be a purple cow!
Godin addresses himself to marketers and suggests that they use this fun and easy-to-read book full of mini-case histories of marketing efforts to convince managers and troops that this is the way forward. Recent history shows that he's right.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Reading now
Of course, I'm still getting around to finishing Purple Cow (a slim book). I wonder what I should do to celebrate when I finally get it finished!
I've started reading Hardball by Sara Paretsky. She's been writing a long time, and I read her first novel and several others in the V.I. Warshawsky series. I've enjoyed this series in the past because I found Warshawsk'si passion and strength attractive.
I've just started yesterday Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. This is the book I didn't know desperately needed to be written. I love it.
For instance, I had no idea that Hermann Zapf designed Palatino - man, he's my hero! I love Palatino!
Author Simon Garfield thoughtfully illustrates this book with examples of how type has been used, and I know that this will help me think about how I want to choose font. I never thought, for instance, that the use of Bodoni conveys class but I'm sure that that knowledge might come in handy someday.
I find this book easy to read, and engaging, which is my standard for having been written well. But there's something about Garfield's words I find somewhat surprising and I haven't put my finger on it yet. Perhaps it's only that he resists the temptation to give you a lot of history at the same time that he's giving you a little history.
And, I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which I find quite interesting. I'm on the second chapter, which I really enjoyed. She's clearly done a lot of research, which she frequently summarizes. She also quotes folks quite frequently, including your friend and mine, Dr. Johnson. Apparently the good doctor had quite a bit to say about happiness.
Part of the charm of the second chapter is that she neatly solves a persistent domestic problem: nagging and resentment. Actually, the solution isn't that neat because it requires thought and self-discipline. Speaking only for myself, let me say that self-discipline is hard. (Those of you who find self-discipline easy can spend this lesson working on your tact.) However, she demonstrates that it can be done. She undertakes a project called the Week of Extreme Nice, in which she bends over backwards not to criticize, not to nag, and to go out of her way to be cheerful, pleasant, and thoughtful to her spouse. And, by the end of the week, she finds that her spouse has noticed and responded. Vicariously, I find that immensely satisfying.
Oh, and I started to read 'Tis. And I've also begun Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's her account of a year that her family spent farming and eating things that they either grew themselves or got from someone nearby, eliminating the petroleum consumption that's a part of the cost of the things that you buy in the grocery store.
I've started reading Hardball by Sara Paretsky. She's been writing a long time, and I read her first novel and several others in the V.I. Warshawsky series. I've enjoyed this series in the past because I found Warshawsk'si passion and strength attractive.
I've just started yesterday Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. This is the book I didn't know desperately needed to be written. I love it.
For instance, I had no idea that Hermann Zapf designed Palatino - man, he's my hero! I love Palatino!
Author Simon Garfield thoughtfully illustrates this book with examples of how type has been used, and I know that this will help me think about how I want to choose font. I never thought, for instance, that the use of Bodoni conveys class but I'm sure that that knowledge might come in handy someday.
I find this book easy to read, and engaging, which is my standard for having been written well. But there's something about Garfield's words I find somewhat surprising and I haven't put my finger on it yet. Perhaps it's only that he resists the temptation to give you a lot of history at the same time that he's giving you a little history.
And, I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which I find quite interesting. I'm on the second chapter, which I really enjoyed. She's clearly done a lot of research, which she frequently summarizes. She also quotes folks quite frequently, including your friend and mine, Dr. Johnson. Apparently the good doctor had quite a bit to say about happiness.
Part of the charm of the second chapter is that she neatly solves a persistent domestic problem: nagging and resentment. Actually, the solution isn't that neat because it requires thought and self-discipline. Speaking only for myself, let me say that self-discipline is hard. (Those of you who find self-discipline easy can spend this lesson working on your tact.) However, she demonstrates that it can be done. She undertakes a project called the Week of Extreme Nice, in which she bends over backwards not to criticize, not to nag, and to go out of her way to be cheerful, pleasant, and thoughtful to her spouse. And, by the end of the week, she finds that her spouse has noticed and responded. Vicariously, I find that immensely satisfying.
Oh, and I started to read 'Tis. And I've also begun Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's her account of a year that her family spent farming and eating things that they either grew themselves or got from someone nearby, eliminating the petroleum consumption that's a part of the cost of the things that you buy in the grocery store.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
This book is a personal account of the author's experiences during a 100-day genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Rwanda was then under attack by Tutsi rebels. The Hutu president's plane was shot down and everyone in it was killed. The ruling Hutus revenged themselves by beginning a genocide of any and all Tutsis. Estimates of the number of Tutsis killed ranges from 800,000 to 1,000,000. Everyone in her immediate family was killed except for an older brother who was then attending studying in Senegal.
After the killing started, her family asked a neighboring pastor to take her in. He hid her, along with six other women, in a bathroom just large enough to hold a shower and a toilet - the size of a deep closet. This lasted for two months, when the pastor's family judged it was too dangerous to hold them any longer and took them to a nearby camp of French soldiers.
She got through the experience by praying, fervently, and used her sense of faith and moral conviction to hold off two angry mobs.
Much of her account is about how her relationship with God deepened in this crisis and how she used her faith to survive the tremendous psychological pressure of hiding in such cramped conditions, and to rebuild her life after the genocide was over. She recounts in detail her thoughts, state of mind, and prayers to God during her ordeal.
The purpose of her book seems to be to memorialize her family, in part, and to bear witness not just to their lives but to the importance she places on her ability to forgive the killers of her family in order to live a spiritual life.
Today I learned about a new book by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I find it hard to believe that that's true but I hope that it is.
Rwanda was then under attack by Tutsi rebels. The Hutu president's plane was shot down and everyone in it was killed. The ruling Hutus revenged themselves by beginning a genocide of any and all Tutsis. Estimates of the number of Tutsis killed ranges from 800,000 to 1,000,000. Everyone in her immediate family was killed except for an older brother who was then attending studying in Senegal.
After the killing started, her family asked a neighboring pastor to take her in. He hid her, along with six other women, in a bathroom just large enough to hold a shower and a toilet - the size of a deep closet. This lasted for two months, when the pastor's family judged it was too dangerous to hold them any longer and took them to a nearby camp of French soldiers.
She got through the experience by praying, fervently, and used her sense of faith and moral conviction to hold off two angry mobs.
Much of her account is about how her relationship with God deepened in this crisis and how she used her faith to survive the tremendous psychological pressure of hiding in such cramped conditions, and to rebuild her life after the genocide was over. She recounts in detail her thoughts, state of mind, and prayers to God during her ordeal.
The purpose of her book seems to be to memorialize her family, in part, and to bear witness not just to their lives but to the importance she places on her ability to forgive the killers of her family in order to live a spiritual life.
Today I learned about a new book by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I find it hard to believe that that's true but I hope that it is.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me about Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
Let me say this at once and get it off my chest: I loved this book!
In this book, which uses memoir as a framework for an explanation of Austen's themes, William Deresiewicz frames the six novels of Jane Austen with the story of his own graduate school years, when he was "coming of age" like Austen's heroines.
When I started the book (some time ago, ahem) I looked at the Table of Contents and I was thrilled - because each Austen book had its own discrete chapter. This permitted me to read one chapter at a time, put the book aside, and return to it when I had more time.
I puzzled over where I should begin, and finally decided I should begin with my favorite novel, Persuasion.
I'd recently read Persuasion with my book group and when it was time for us to comment on our reading, I struggled to explain why I loved the novel so much.
I wondered if my love of this novel could merely be wish fulfillment: Anne Elliot is on the shelf for seven or eight years after she rejects the proposal of the man she loves, having been persuaded to make that decision by a dear friend who meant well. At home, she's lonely, bored, and entirely overlooked by her family who doesn't value her good qualities.
She meets Wentworth again after seven years have passed. Ironically, and perhaps cruelly, Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law move into the Elliot family home, Kellynch, after the Elliots are forced to rent it out to offset their proud and profligate spending. She is embarrassed and terribly saddened at the same time. It hurts her that Wentworth barely acknowledges their former acquaintance when they meet once again. Her sister tells her that Wentworth reported that she'd changed so much he hardly recognized her (ouch! -- Anne's sister Mary is not blessed with tact); her sister Mary and Mary's husband, Charles, immediately start speculating about which of their sisters would be most likely to marry Wentworth, "a capital match," as he's wealthy from the cargo French ships he seized as a captain in the British Navy.
All this makes Anne's eventual fate seem like a triumph, when Wentworth not only proposes to her again, but does so in a letter that is the apex of romantic declaiming ("You pierce my soul!").
But all Austen's novels end in advantageous marriages to worthy men (whether wealthy gentlemen or conscientious clergymen).
So what's so special about Persuasion?
Deresiewicz explains that he chose to write about Persuasion for his dissertation because he himself was experiencing a saddening transition. In high school and college, he had taken his friends for granted. As he began graduate school, his friends all began their adult lives, often far away, and he wasn't able to spend time with them or to share their experiences. He'd lost his own personal community.
At the opening of Persuasion, Anne Elliot has no community. Her family doesn't value her, and is happy to loan her out to a married sister to perform a variety of domestic tasks.
But by the end of the novel, Anne Elliot has a community, a group of friends clustered around the Harvilles. Captain Harville's sister was engaged to be married to one of his shipboard colleagues, Captain Benwick. Tragically, Miss Harville died before she and Benwick could marry, but this shared tragedy drew Benwick closer to the Harvilles. The Harvilles are also very close to Captain Wentworth, which is how Anne meets them -- Captain Wentworth invites Mary, her husband, her husband's two sisters, and Anne to join him in visiting the Harvilles in Lyme Regis. The Harvilles, Captain Benwick, and Captain Wentworth together form a kind of family.
Derewiesicz points out how frequently Austen uses the word "friendship" or other variations and how frequently she describes characters as a "true friend."
More importantly, he explains something that I find amazing: he shows that Anne copes with being forced to live with her family in their home in Bath, a place where she's not really included, by spending as much time as possible with her friends, old and new, but especially with the Harvilles (with their "unpretentious warmth," Captain Benwick, Captain Wentworth, and her sister's husband and his family, the Musgroves. Captain Wentworth's Navy "family" (Captain Benwick and the Harvilles) offers a new social circle to Anne, one that she can turn to for kindness, support and intellectual stimulation.
As Deresiewicz points out, Anne's lack of interest in her father and her sister and their affairs becomes so great that when she hears gossip about a scheme that threatens their happiness, she doesn't do anything about it. Implied in this situation is a rejection of the aristocracy (Sir Walter Elliot, Anne's father, is a baronet) for the rising middle class and a notion of meritocracy (the men of the Navy: Captains Harville, Benwick, Wentworth, and Wentworth's brother-in-law, Admiral Croft).
Deresiewicz concludes by saying that Austen taught him that friends are the family you choose. I suspect that that very modern sentiment is why I love Persuasion so much.
I read a review which noted that the frame of Deresiewicz's real life experiences for his discussion of Austen's novels seemed a little creaky - perhaps lacking in color and excitement. Just to prove that there's no accounting for taste, I have to say that didn't bother me at all. I'm constantly thinking about why we read fiction and lately, memoir, and I have to say that I think that one reason we read memoir is to "benchmark" - to compare our experiences with others', undoubtedly to gain wisdom and maturity and I suspect to permit us to feel better about our ourselves.
The themes that Deresiewicz addresses: who will be my friends? who will be my family? how do I relate to my father (copy him?, reject him?, forgive him?, embrace him?), how do I respect my father when I'm more American than he is? are questions that a lot of people confront. Some of them would be very interested in learning about Deresiewicz's experience and about what Jane Austen thought about these questions. Deresiewicz makes Austen relatable rather than just glamourous.
In this book, which uses memoir as a framework for an explanation of Austen's themes, William Deresiewicz frames the six novels of Jane Austen with the story of his own graduate school years, when he was "coming of age" like Austen's heroines.
When I started the book (some time ago, ahem) I looked at the Table of Contents and I was thrilled - because each Austen book had its own discrete chapter. This permitted me to read one chapter at a time, put the book aside, and return to it when I had more time.
I puzzled over where I should begin, and finally decided I should begin with my favorite novel, Persuasion.
I'd recently read Persuasion with my book group and when it was time for us to comment on our reading, I struggled to explain why I loved the novel so much.
I wondered if my love of this novel could merely be wish fulfillment: Anne Elliot is on the shelf for seven or eight years after she rejects the proposal of the man she loves, having been persuaded to make that decision by a dear friend who meant well. At home, she's lonely, bored, and entirely overlooked by her family who doesn't value her good qualities.
She meets Wentworth again after seven years have passed. Ironically, and perhaps cruelly, Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law move into the Elliot family home, Kellynch, after the Elliots are forced to rent it out to offset their proud and profligate spending. She is embarrassed and terribly saddened at the same time. It hurts her that Wentworth barely acknowledges their former acquaintance when they meet once again. Her sister tells her that Wentworth reported that she'd changed so much he hardly recognized her (ouch! -- Anne's sister Mary is not blessed with tact); her sister Mary and Mary's husband, Charles, immediately start speculating about which of their sisters would be most likely to marry Wentworth, "a capital match," as he's wealthy from the cargo French ships he seized as a captain in the British Navy.
All this makes Anne's eventual fate seem like a triumph, when Wentworth not only proposes to her again, but does so in a letter that is the apex of romantic declaiming ("You pierce my soul!").
But all Austen's novels end in advantageous marriages to worthy men (whether wealthy gentlemen or conscientious clergymen).
So what's so special about Persuasion?
Deresiewicz explains that he chose to write about Persuasion for his dissertation because he himself was experiencing a saddening transition. In high school and college, he had taken his friends for granted. As he began graduate school, his friends all began their adult lives, often far away, and he wasn't able to spend time with them or to share their experiences. He'd lost his own personal community.
At the opening of Persuasion, Anne Elliot has no community. Her family doesn't value her, and is happy to loan her out to a married sister to perform a variety of domestic tasks.
But by the end of the novel, Anne Elliot has a community, a group of friends clustered around the Harvilles. Captain Harville's sister was engaged to be married to one of his shipboard colleagues, Captain Benwick. Tragically, Miss Harville died before she and Benwick could marry, but this shared tragedy drew Benwick closer to the Harvilles. The Harvilles are also very close to Captain Wentworth, which is how Anne meets them -- Captain Wentworth invites Mary, her husband, her husband's two sisters, and Anne to join him in visiting the Harvilles in Lyme Regis. The Harvilles, Captain Benwick, and Captain Wentworth together form a kind of family.
Derewiesicz points out how frequently Austen uses the word "friendship" or other variations and how frequently she describes characters as a "true friend."
More importantly, he explains something that I find amazing: he shows that Anne copes with being forced to live with her family in their home in Bath, a place where she's not really included, by spending as much time as possible with her friends, old and new, but especially with the Harvilles (with their "unpretentious warmth," Captain Benwick, Captain Wentworth, and her sister's husband and his family, the Musgroves. Captain Wentworth's Navy "family" (Captain Benwick and the Harvilles) offers a new social circle to Anne, one that she can turn to for kindness, support and intellectual stimulation.
As Deresiewicz points out, Anne's lack of interest in her father and her sister and their affairs becomes so great that when she hears gossip about a scheme that threatens their happiness, she doesn't do anything about it. Implied in this situation is a rejection of the aristocracy (Sir Walter Elliot, Anne's father, is a baronet) for the rising middle class and a notion of meritocracy (the men of the Navy: Captains Harville, Benwick, Wentworth, and Wentworth's brother-in-law, Admiral Croft).
Deresiewicz concludes by saying that Austen taught him that friends are the family you choose. I suspect that that very modern sentiment is why I love Persuasion so much.
I read a review which noted that the frame of Deresiewicz's real life experiences for his discussion of Austen's novels seemed a little creaky - perhaps lacking in color and excitement. Just to prove that there's no accounting for taste, I have to say that didn't bother me at all. I'm constantly thinking about why we read fiction and lately, memoir, and I have to say that I think that one reason we read memoir is to "benchmark" - to compare our experiences with others', undoubtedly to gain wisdom and maturity and I suspect to permit us to feel better about our ourselves.
The themes that Deresiewicz addresses: who will be my friends? who will be my family? how do I relate to my father (copy him?, reject him?, forgive him?, embrace him?), how do I respect my father when I'm more American than he is? are questions that a lot of people confront. Some of them would be very interested in learning about Deresiewicz's experience and about what Jane Austen thought about these questions. Deresiewicz makes Austen relatable rather than just glamourous.
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