Words and Worlds
In this candid and bluntly humorous collection of essays on a wide range of topics, Lurie begins with a candid portrait of her life at Radcliffe during World War II when the smartest women in the country were treated like second-class citizens, the most scholarly among them expected to work in factories to support the war effort. She moves on to her unheralded, clumsy attempts and near failure to be a writer, and finally having reached a level of recognition, the great good fortune of forming close relationships with other writers and editors and great thinkers, including Robert Silver of the New York Review of Books, the poet James Merrill and the illustrator, Edward Gorey. On this fascinating journey, we are amused by her insightful, often delightfully funny meditations on topics like "deconstruction" and beloved children's literature series such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter, and Barbar. A crowning reminiscence from a much beloved and celebrated writer.
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"Stimulating... entertaining... fascinating.... Lovers of literature and the arts will find this a delightful and rewarding volume." -- Publishers Weekly
"Engaging... captivating... an appealing miscellany." -- Kirkus Reviews
Praise for The Language of Houses: "...makes a powerful argument that how we choose to order the space we live and work in reveals far more about us.... full of mischievous apercus, and Ms. Lurie at her best is bracingly subversive... a mine of adroit observation, uncovering apparently humdrum details to reveal their unexpected, and occasionally poignant, human meaning." -- Wall Street Journal
"...a book meticulously packed with facts, paradoxes and observations... a rich compendium of information, exploring how we inhabit our homes, our offices and our places of learning, leisure and worship, from every conceivable angle, in neatly organized chapters addressing each category of building." -- Seattle Times
"Lurie maintains a light touch with such damning observations... One of the book's best chapters treats public high schools... its insights into our vanity, and capacity for almost negligent public construction, are ripe for the gleaning." -- Boston Globe
"The Language of Houses has every quality you would expect from a work by Alison Lurie: intelligence, authority, wit and charm." -- Louis Begley
"Alison Lurie, in her lucid, jargon-free way, allows us to read what architecture is saying. She has culled the best ideas from a vast secondary literature and passed it all through the sieve of her brilliant mind." -- Edmund White, author of Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris
"There's much to absorb in this sequel to Alison Lurie's The Language of Clothes, but The Language of Houses is an extraordinarily absorbing book--it wears its learning lightly, holding this reader's attention the way a fine novel does. I was particularly fascinated by the linked chapters on religious buildings and museums." -- James McConkey, author of Court of Memory
