When I Was a Child I Read Books (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780374298784)

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A New York Times Bestseller
A New York Magazine Best Book of the Year
An Economist Best Book of the Year
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of Gilead

Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist.

In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.

In "Austerity as Ideology," she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challenging. In "Open Thy Hand Wide" she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child," one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.

Author: Marilynne Robinson
ISBN-10: 0374298785
ISBN-13: 9780374298784
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English
Published: 03/13/2012
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.81h x 5.57w x 0.84d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 10/15/2011 pg. 63
Publishers Weekly 12/19/2011
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2011
Entertainment Weekly 01/06/2012 pg. 77
Booklist 01/01/2012 pg. 30
Library Journal 02/15/2012 pg. 105
Shelf Awareness 03/20/2012
New York Times Book Review 04/22/2012 pg. 13
New York Times Book Review 04/29/2012 pg. 22
Christian Century 06/13/2012 pg. 36

About the Author
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Housekeeping (FSG, 1981), Gilead (FSG, 2004), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Home (FSG, 2008), and the nonfiction books, Mother Country (FSG, 1989), The Death of Adam (1998) and Absence of Mind (2010). She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.