Overview

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. You can’t think about travel without thinking about luggage. And baggage has baggage. Susan Harlan takes readers on a journey with the suitcases that support, accessorize, and accompany our lives. Along the way, she shows how the materials of travel — the carry-ons, totes, trunks, and train cases of the past and present — have stories to tell about displacement, home, gender, class, consumption, and labor. Luggage considers bags as carefully curated microcosms of our domestic and professional selves, charting the evolution of travel across literature, film, and art. A simple suitcase, it turns out, contains more than you might think. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

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9781501329296

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Reviews

Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book-compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight-is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it. * Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men * For those of us who travel for a living, luggage is all things in one: tool, companion, talisman. I think about luggage a lot. Probably too much. But I've never read anything that-forgive me here-unpacks the history and meaning of luggage with the same depth and verve as Susan Harlan does. From Shakespeare's Henry V to an oddly compelling contemporary visit to Alabama's Unclaimed Baggage Center, this slim volume is worth the journey. * Nathan Thornburgh, Co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms *

In this short, delicious little extended essay, author Susan Harlan takes a closer look at our luggage, why we have it, why we use it as we do ... Brisk writing threads pensive musings about our luggage with the author's use of her own on one of her many business trips. What we choose to take, which bags and what to pack, their shape and size and appearance and more, all have a lot to say about who we are. Who knew a few bags could have such deep psychological implications? Five stars. * San Francisco Book Review * Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book - compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight - is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it. * Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men * For those of us who travel for a living, luggage is all things in one: tool, companion, talisman. I think about luggage a lot. Probably too much. But I've never read anything that - forgive me here - unpacks the history and meaning of luggage with the same depth and verve as Susan Harlan does. From Shakespeare's Henry V to an oddly compelling contemporary visit to Alabama's Unclaimed Baggage Center, this slim volume is worth the journey. * Nathan Thornburgh, Co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms *

Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book-compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight-is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it. * Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men *

In this welcome addition to Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series, author Susan Harlan packs just enough in her sturdy devices to finish this trip on time and under budget ... What is luggage? What is baggage? Are they interchangeable terms, or does the former exist only because it started as the latter? Is a backpack luggage? Questions are asked and answered. * PopMatters * In this short, delicious little extended essay, author Susan Harlan takes a closer look at our luggage, why we have it, why we use it as we do ... Brisk writing threads pensive musings about our luggage with the author's use of her own on one of her many business trips. What we choose to take, which bags and what to pack, their shape and size and appearance and more, all have a lot to say about who we are. Who knew a few bags could have such deep psychological implications? Five stars. * San Francisco Book Review * Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book - compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight - is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it. * Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men * For those of us who travel for a living, luggage is all things in one: tool, companion, talisman. I think about luggage a lot. Probably too much. But I've never read anything that - forgive me here - unpacks the history and meaning of luggage with the same depth and verve as Susan Harlan does. From Shakespeare's Henry V to an oddly compelling contemporary visit to Alabama's Unclaimed Baggage Center, this slim volume is worth the journey. * Nathan Thornburgh, Co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms * An intimate look at suitcases, trunks, totes, and other baggage, Luggage illuminates the intricacies of how we carry our lives with us when we travel ... Harlan's exploration of the minutiae of luggage makes for introspection ... Harlan mines the life of things we pay little attention to, or simply don't recall, and calls up nostalgia through the memory of objects. * Brevity *

Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book - compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight - is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it. * Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men * For those of us who travel for a living, luggage is all things in one: tool, companion, talisman. I think about luggage a lot. Probably too much. But I've never read anything that - forgive me here - unpacks the history and meaning of luggage with the same depth and verve as Susan Harlan does. From Shakespeare's Henry V to an oddly compelling contemporary visit to Alabama's Unclaimed Baggage Center, this slim volume is worth the journey. * Nathan Thornburgh, Co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms *

Author Information

Susan Harlan is Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University, USA. She is the author of Memories of War in Early Modern England (2016). Her writing has appeared in publications including the Guardian, the Awl, the Bitter Southerner, Jezebel, and Atlas Obscura.

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