Overview

Weaving a complex tapestry drawn from interviews, anecdotes, moments from Beard's own life, and sheer imagination, these extraordinary pieces embody the hospitality of spectacular writing: they are spaces you fall into and are reluctant to leave. From the intimate drama of everyday life - school crushes, dog clinics, divorce - to the terror and excitement of a fox lurking by a campsite or a murderer in your home, Beard flawlessly distils what it means to live deeply as we hurtle through wonder and grief, love and heartbreak. Bringing together pieces from Beard's first collection, The Boys of My Youth, and Festival Days, which was published two decades later, The Collected Works showcases Jo Ann Beard's impressive breadth, quiet brilliance, and timeless prose.

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9781800817883

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Reviews

Jo Ann Beard is a remarkably modest writer, a kind of literary celebrity ... readers who become fans of her work view it with the kind of amazement associated with human and literal stars -- Mary Gaitskill A towering talent... Perhaps instead of an essayist we should think of her as a poet-naturalist, wedding intuition and observation, and forming from this union something unaccountably yet undeniably real * New York Times Book Review * Darkly moving, and, at times, unexpectedly - almost unbearably - suspenseful -- Geoff Dyer Reading Jo Ann Beard is like setting out on a walk with a curious and intelligent friend who is determined to show you how seemingly unrelated things share a secret kinship -- Adrienne Brodeur

Jo Ann Beard is a remarkably modest writer, a kind of literary celebrity ... readers who become fans of her work view it with the kind of amazement associated with human and literal stars -- Mary Gaitskill A towering talent... Perhaps instead of an essayist we should think of her as a poet-naturalist, wedding intuition and observation, and forming from this union something unaccountably yet undeniably real * New York Times Book Review * Reading Jo Ann Beard is like setting out on a walk with a curious and intelligent friend who is determined to show you how seemingly unrelated things share a secret kinship -- Adrienne Brodeur

Jo Ann Beard is a remarkably modest writer, a kind of literary celebrity ... readers who become fans of her work view it with the kind of amazement associated with human and literal stars -- Mary Gaitskill Ferocious... Beard [is] a towering talent... Perhaps instead of an essayist we should think of her as a poet-naturalist, wedding intuition and observation, and forming from this union something unaccountably yet undeniably real -- Leah Hager Cohen * New York Times Book Review * Reading Jo Ann Beard is like setting out on a walk with a curious and intelligent friend who is determined to show you how seemingly unrelated things share a secret kinship -- Adrienne Brodeur

Author Information

Jo Ann Beard is the author the collections Festival Days and The Boys of My Youth, published jointly in the United Kingdom as The Collected Works. She is also the author of the novel In Zanesville, and the novella Cheri. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Best American Essays, and other magazines and anthologies. She has received a Whiting Foundation Award and nonfiction fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2022, she received an American Academy of Arts and Letters 2022 Award in Literature. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

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