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Essays and Conversations
by Maggie Nelson
A career-spanning collection of inspiring, revelrous essays about art and artists
Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson's brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson's passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide—from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker—but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.
Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson's own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.
"Nelson's admiration and enthusiasm for her subjects is a palpable driver of joy and delight... . A revelatory gathering of beloved art and artists presented with distinctive prose." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Drawn from nearly 20 years of genre-defying author Maggie Nelson's work, Like Love offers incisive commentary on topics ranging from music and literature to feminism and queerness to motherhood and love." ―Time's "Most Anticipated Books of 2024"
"There are a couple authors and artists out there that I am distinctly grateful to be alive alongside, and Maggie Nelson might be at the top of that list... . [Like Love is] a stunning and integral book." ―Julia Hass, Literary Hub's "Most Anticipated Books of 2024"
"A luminous gathering of dispatches from the delicate adventure of thinking alongside other people. Like Love is a reminder of wow." ―Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar
"Maggie Nelson's shimmering genius is on full display in this collection. Like Love is a celebration of friendship and outlaw communities of artists and writers that demonstrates how we can hold onto love as we hurtle uncertainly into the future."―Cathy Park Hong
"Like Love is a convergence of the most incandescent parts of Maggie Nelson's inimitable craft: there is her ceaseless curiosity, her capacity not only to hold complexity but to court it with equal parts desire and critique, the generosity and gratitude of her thinking held by gorgeous turns of phrase."―Johanna Hedva, author of Your Love Is Not Good
This information about Like Love was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and award-winning author of The Argonauts, Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
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