Abominations
Selected essays from a career of courting self-destruction
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
The first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.
‘This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer… Order a copy in case she’s cancelled by Christmas’ THE TIMES (Book of the Year)
‘You may disagree with Lionel Shriver’s bracing journalism, but her right to spark disquiet goes to the heart of the freedom of expression issue’ Rachel Cooke, OBSERVER
‘Mutinous essays about modern politics and culture… An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance’ THE TIMES
‘Testament to the fierce intelligence of a writer who wants us to think more, probe more, challenge more — and who also makes it fun’ THE SUNDAY TIMES
Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces ‘under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous’ points of view, she regularly deplores the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken society.
Bringing together thirty-five works curated from her many columns, features, essays and op-eds for the likes of the Spectator and Guardian, speeches and reviews, and some unpublished pieces, Abominations reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly sceptical, cutting and contrarian but also frequently moving and vulnerable, this collection showcases her piquant opinions on a wide range of topics, including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care and taxes.
Though some of the more divisive essays in Abominations have ‘brought hell and damnation down on my head,’ as she cheerfully explains, she also offers insights on her novels and explores the perks and pitfalls of becoming a successful artist. Readers will find plenty to challenge them here, but they may also find many nuanced and considered insights with which they agree.
Abominations was a Times Book of the Year in the Literature category on 26.11.2022
Reviews
‘This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer… Order a copy in case she’s cancelled by Christmas’ THE TIMES (Book of the Year)
This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer on writing’ THE TIMES
‘Abominations is a refreshing mix of the personal and the political. Shriver’s essays beat with deliciously, dangerous opinions, but the cadence is catchingly humane. The world and my mind feel a little bigger and a little clearer’ Laura Dodsworth
‘Provocative, funny, original and pithy’ THE TIMES
‘Testament to the fierce intelligence of a writer who wants us to think more, probe more, challenge more — and who also makes it fun’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘You may disagree with Lionel Shriver’s bracing journalism, but her right to spark disquiet goes to the heart of the freedom of expression issue’ Rachel Cooke, OBSERVER
‘Mutinous essays about modern politics and culture… An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance’ THE TIMES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Shriver (Should We Stay or Should We Go) collects more than two decades' worth of her nonfiction writing in this hit-or-miss compendium. Topics range from the personal, such as the death of the author's brother, to the pedantic—as with a look at Shriver's "battle" against comma splices. Shriver also navigates a slew of professional controversies: in her opening address at the 2016 Brisbane Writers Festival, she said she hoped "the concept of ‘cultural appropriation' is a passing fad (albeit one not passing fast enough)," and goes on, in "a slight expansion" of a New York Times op-ed (rather than the "the crimped, eviscerated" version that the paper published), to respond to a writer who was upset by the address: "This is a performance of injury, an opportunistic and even triumphant display of injury." While her prose is reliably strong, some of the stances she takes in service of being a self-proclaimed iconoclast can be a slog to get through, especially when they near condescension. (Of a diversity questionnaire sent to Penguin Random House authors, she writes "You can self-classify as disabled, and three sequential questions obviously hope to elicit that you've been as badly educated as humanly possible.") Shriver's fans, though, will make room on their shelves for it.
