Shadow Work
Loneliness and the Literary Life
Columbia University Press · Print & ebook · March 4, 2025
How is it that reading and writing can at once isolate us and bring us closer to others?
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- Who it’s for
- Personal narrative and literary criticism examine loneliness, connection, and the unseen labor surrounding books.
- Genres
- Books & Reading, Essay Collections, Women Authors Criticism
- Published
- Columbia University Press, March 4, 2025
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Start with this bookAbout this book
How is it that reading and writing can at once isolate us and bring us closer to others? Blending personal narrative with literary criticism, Emily Hodgson Anderson considers what a life spent with books has taught her about loneliness and human connection. She delves into the unseen labor of women, authors, and mothers, and she argues that we can reimagine intimacy through books.
Continue reading
Herself a book lover and writer, a teacher of literature, and a single mom, Anderson reflects on the loneliness—and the strength—that can come from living, writing, and parenting alone. Shadow Work puts writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Laurence Sterne, and Shakespeare into unexpected conversations with authors of children’s literature and contemporary fiction, among them Roald Dahl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Zadie Smith, and Lewis Carroll. Elegantly and poignantly written, this book examines what it means to revisit longtime literary companions and how literature can help us better understand what we show and hide about ourselves.
Books and Intimacy
Personal narrative and literary criticism examine loneliness, connection, and the unseen labor surrounding books.
Come here for
- Reflections on reading and writing as both isolating and connecting
- Literary conversations across classic, children’s, and contemporary fiction
Expect
- Attention to the unseen labor of women, authors, and mothers
- Reflections on revisiting longtime literary companions
Where it sits
| Books & Reading | 43% |
|---|---|
| Essay Collections | 40% |
| Women Authors Criticism | 36% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Feminist Lit Crit
- American Lit Crit
- British & Irish Literary Criticism
- Books & Reading
Show all 5 publisher categories
- Women in Literature
- Authors
- Emily Hodgson Anderson
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Published
- March 4, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Feminist Lit Crit