Literary Essays
I’ve read thousands of books since I learned to read 50 years ago and that, certainly, has had a cumulative impact on my life – all that time I could have spent bowling or watching the History Channel … Books have helped populate my interior landscape, overhauled my imagination, buffered me against loneliness and despair, kept me amused, honed my critical faculties…
Patrick Kurp Anecdotal Evidence
evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com
In the essays on this page I write about some of the experiences I have had in reading literature, how literature has entered my life and in some cases changed me, as well as other readers too.
Waiting for The New Yorker. Long ago The New Yorker Magazine introduced me to the world of literature and fine writing and my affection for the magazine continues to this day.
A Table in the Stacks One night recently the lights went out in the library where I was studying and I realized it had been closed. I thought what a delightful way to spend an overnight.
Journey Through the Book Over the years I have been collecting bookmarks from the places and bookstores I have visited. For me and other readers they play a small but important role in the experience of reading a book.
Annotating Saturday Ian McEwan’s novel, Saturday, was one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read recently. I explain why in this review.
An Inquiring Mind I was moved to write this essay after reading Pascal Mercier’s extraordinary novel Night Train to Lisbon. It is among the most memorable books in my days of reading literary fiction
Does Literature Change Lives? Here I pose the fundamental question that led me to the study of literature. I review the anecdotal and empirical research on the varied effects of reading literature.
