{"title":"Books that ruined our lives","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"my-brother-by-jamaica-kincaid-2","title":"My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJamaica Kincaid's brother Devon Drew died of AIDS on January 19, 1996, at the age of thirty-three. Kincaid's incantatory, poetic, and often shockingly frank recounting of her brother's life and death is also a story of her family on the island of Antigua, a constellation centered on the powerful, sometimes threatening figure of the writer's mother. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eMy Brother\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is an unblinking record of a life that ended too early, and it speaks volumes about the difficult truths at the heart of all families.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53083671331125,"sku":null,"price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/MyBrother_9c66dde4-b723-4f07-aed1-e572c3989864.jpg?v=1783040568"},{"product_id":"blue-nights-by-joan-didion","title":"Blue Nights by Joan Didion","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRichly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and growing old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs she reflects on her daughter’s life and on her role as a parent, Didion grapples with the candid questions that all parents face, and contemplates her age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBlue Nights\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Year of Magical Thinking\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53097208873269,"sku":null,"price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/blueNights_d0d87eaa-426b-4a5e-a1cc-bda8c0c300d8.jpg?v=1783276218"},{"product_id":"to-the-friend-who-did-not-save-my-life-by-herve-guibert","title":"To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Herve Guibert","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published by Gallimard in 1990, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eTo the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e describes, with devastating, darkly comic clarity, its narrator's experience of being diagnosed with AIDS. Guibert chronicles three months in the penultimate year of the narrator's life as, in the wake of his friend Muzil's death, he goes from one quack doctor to another, describing the progression of the disease and recording the reactions of his many friends.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe novel scandalized the French media, which quickly identified Muzil as Guibert's close friend Michel Foucault. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eTo the Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e became a bestseller, and Guibert a celebrity. Guibert continued to document the daily experiences of his body in a series of novels and diaries, mostly published posthumously. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eTo the Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e has since attained a cult following for its intimate and candid tone, its fragmented and slippery form. As Edmund White observed, “[Guibert's] very taste for the grotesque, this compulsion to offend, finally affords him the necessary rhetorical panache to convey the full, exhilarating horror of his predicament.” In his struggle to piece together a language suited to his suffering, Hervé Guibert catapulted himself into notoriety and sealed his reputation for uncompromising, transgressive prose.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098110157109,"sku":null,"price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/ToTheFriend.jpg?v=1783300766"},{"product_id":"being-here-is-everything-the-life-of-paula-modersohn-becker-by-marie-darrieussecq-1","title":"Being Here Is Everything: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darrieussecq","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published in France in 2016, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBeing Here Is So Much\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e traces the short, obscure, and prolific life of the German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907). In a brief career, cut short by her death from an embolism at the age of thirty-one, shortly after she gave birth to a child, Modersohn-Becker trained in Germany, traveled often to Paris, developed close friendships with the sculptor Clara Westhoff and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and became one of her generation's preeminent artists, helping introduce modernity to the twentieth century alongside such other painters as Picasso and Matisse.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMarie Darrieussecq's triumphant and illuminating biography at once revives Modersohn-Becker's reputation as a significant figure in modernism and sheds light on the extreme difficulty women have faced in attaining recognition and establishing artistic careers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098112287029,"sku":null,"price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/BeingHereIsEverything.jpg?v=1783300940"},{"product_id":"the-mountain-lion-by-jean-stafford","title":"The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEight-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother Ralph are inseparable, in league with each other against the stodgy and stupid routines of school and daily life; against their prim mother and prissy older sisters; against the world of authority and perhaps the world itself. One summer they are sent from the genteel Los Angeles suburb that is their home to backcountry Colorado, where their uncle Claude has a ranch. There the children encounter an enchanting new world—savage, direct, beautiful, untamed—to which, over the next few years, they will return regularly, enjoying a delicious double life. And yet at the same time this other sphere, about which they are both so passionate, threatens to come between their passionate attachment to each other. Molly dreams of growing up to be a writer, yet clings ever more  fiercely to the special world of childhood. Ralph for his part feels the growing challenge, and appeal, of impending manhood. Youth and innocence are hurtling toward a devastating end.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098113859893,"sku":null,"price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/TheMountainLion.jpg?v=1783301067"},{"product_id":"sad-tiger-by-neige-sinno","title":"Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSad Tiger\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was seven years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her. At 19, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence. This led to a public trial and prison for her stepfather and Sinno started a new life in Mexico.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough the construction of a fragmented narrative, Sinno explores the different facets of memory—her own, her mother’s, as well as her abusive stepfather’s; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. Her account is woven together with a close reading of literary works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes among others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSad Tiger\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—the title inspired by William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”—is a literary exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. In this extraordinary book there is an abiding concern: how to protect others from what the author herself endured? In the midst of so much darkness, an answer reads crystal clear: by speaking up and asking questions. A striking, shocking, and necessary masterpiece.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098126541109,"sku":null,"price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/SadTiger.jpg?v=1783301574"},{"product_id":"study-for-obedience-by-sarah-bernstein","title":"Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs - collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threat that lies 'just beyond the garden gate.' And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother's property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith a sharp, lyrical voice, Sarah Bernstein powerfully explores questions of complicity and power, displacement and inheritance. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eStudy for Obedience\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098150297909,"sku":null,"price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/StudyForObedience.jpg?v=1783303455"},{"product_id":"loves-work-by-gillian-rose","title":"Love's Work by Gillian Rose","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1590173651\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"vx57ei-43x5uv-d24yaf-l2bxm3\" data-cel-widget=\"bookDescription_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eLove’s Work\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is at once a memoir and a work of philosophy. Written by the English philosopher Gillian Rose as she was dying of cancer, it is a book about both the fallibility and the endurance of love, love that becomes real and lasting through an ongoing reckoning with its own limitations. Rose looks back on her childhood, the complications of her parents’ divorce and her dyslexia, and her deep and divided feelings about what it means to be Jewish. She tells the stories of several friends also laboring under the sentence of death. From the sometimes conflicting vantage points of her own and her friends’ tales, she seeks to work out (seeks, because the work can never be complete—to be alive means to be incomplete) a distinctive outlook on life, one that will do justice to our yearning both for autonomy and for connection to others. With droll self-knowledge (“I am highly qualified in unhappy love affairs,” Rose writes, “My earliest unhappy love affair was with Roy Rogers”) and with unsettling wisdom (“To live, to love, is to be failed”), Rose has written a beautiful, tender, tough, and intricately wrought survival kit packed with necessary but unanswerable questions.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1590173651\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"q07qv3-ujvek8-qmydnl-r8mmu\" data-cel-widget=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1590173651\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"g79bnz-xk4ebh-tq34um-3kdxzg\" data-cel-widget=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1590173651\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"ttkufu-xh05b5-qgwsmf-1k77vq\" data-cel-widget=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"celwidget c-f\" data-csa-op-log-render=\"\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"DsUnknown\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"DsUnknown-10\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-painter=\"tell-amazon-desktop-cards\" data-csa-c-id=\"x6pd1c-ifet7b-dwo1cn-pdus29\" data-cel-widget=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_9\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"CardInstanceghD9F2XjYVNtGVny_GrFew\" data-card-metrics-id=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_9\" data-acp-tracking=\"{}\" data-mix-claimed=\"true\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098151543093,"sku":null,"price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/lovesWork.jpg?v=1783303665"},{"product_id":"the-wall-by-marlen-haushofer-1","title":"The Wall by Marlen Haushofer","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhile vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to survive and cope with her loneliness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAllegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Wall\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and a truly singular feminist classic.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098153607477,"sku":null,"price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/TheWall_643dc1cd-64f3-40e3-bc4e-6e96f11c4d1d.jpg?v=1783303844"},{"product_id":"i-am-the-brother-of-xx-by-fleur-jaeggy","title":"I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFleur Jaeggy is often noted for her terse and telegraphic style, which somehow brews up a profound paradox that seems bent on haunting the reader: despite a sort of zero-at-the-bone baseline, her fiction is weirdly also incredibly moving. How does she do it? No one knows. But here, in her newest collection, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eI Am the Brother of XX\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, she does it again. Like a magician or a master criminal, who can say how she gets away with it, but whether the stories involve famous writers (Calvino, Ingeborg Bachmann, Joseph Brodsky) or baronesses or 13th-century visionaries or tormented siblings bred up in elite Swiss boarding schools, they somehow steal your heart. And they don’t rest at that, but endlessly disturb your mind.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098156458293,"sku":null,"price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/IamTheBrotherOfXX.jpg?v=1783304087"},{"product_id":"bluets-by-maggie-nelson","title":"Bluets by Maggie Nelson","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget flavor-872\" data-feature-name=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1933517409\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"yidmx3-362hgv-okiaok-hrsun9\" data-cel-widget=\"bookDescription_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA lyrical, philosophical, and often explicit exploration of personal suffering and the limitations of vision and love, as refracted through the color blue. With \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBluets\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, Maggie Nelson has entered the pantheon of brilliant lyric essayists.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMaggie Nelson is the author of numerous books of poetry and nonfiction, including \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSomething Bright, Then Holes\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eWomen, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (University of Iowa Press, 2007). She lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget flavor-1468\" data-feature-name=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1933517409\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"cwrwlv-ttbrf9-z5ej8v-i6u2sp\" data-cel-widget=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1933517409\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"9epmx2-l8cau-2htgz2-knn4vx\" data-cel-widget=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"1933517409\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"i4l3pa-7f58l3-eleplx-uht9dh\" data-cel-widget=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"celwidget c-f\" data-csa-op-log-render=\"\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"DsUnknown\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"DsUnknown-1\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-painter=\"tell-amazon-desktop-cards\" data-csa-c-id=\"va2yqi-sg3ohj-80ceur-ddwt5a\" data-cel-widget=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_0\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"CardInstanceeP0IuiC2au7UPfjAwm9mrw\" data-card-metrics-id=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_0\" data-acp-tracking=\"{}\" data-mix-claimed=\"true\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098157015349,"sku":null,"price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/bluets.jpg?v=1783304291"},{"product_id":"gravity-and-grace-by-simone-weil","title":"Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSimone Weil, the French philosopher, political activist, and religious mystic, was little known when she died young in 1943. Four years later the philosopher-farmer Gustave Thibon compiled La pesanteur et la grâce from the notebooks she left in his keeping. In 1952 this English translation accelerated the fame and influence of Simone Weil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe striking aphorisms in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eGravity and Grace\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e reflect the religious philosophy of Weil’s last years. Written at the onset of World War II, when her health was deteriorating and her left-wing social activism was giving way to spiritual introspection, this masterwork makes clear why critics have called Simone Weil “a great soul who might have become a saint” and “the Outsider as saint, in an age of alienation.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098157736245,"sku":null,"price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/gravityAndGrace.jpg?v=1783304402"},{"product_id":"self-portrait-by-celia-paul","title":"Self-Portrait by Celia Paul","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"168137482X\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"vqa2gy-t8322h-9vrn67-k50wzv\" data-cel-widget=\"bookDescription_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eOne of Britain's most important contemporary painters, Celia Paul has written a reflective, intimate memoir of her life as an artist. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSelf-Portrait\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003etells the artist's story in her own words, drawn from early journal entries as well as memory, of her childhood in India and her days as a art student at London's Slade School of Fine Art; of her intense decades-long relationship with the older esteemed painter Lucian Freud and the birth of their son; of the challenges of motherhood, the unresolvable conflict between caring for a child and remaining commited to art; of the \"invisible skeins between people,\" the profound familial connections Paul communicates through her paintings of her mother and sisters; and finally, of the mystical presence in her own solitary vision of the world around her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSelf-Portrait\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a powerful, liberating evocation of a life and of a life-long dedication to art.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"168137482X\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"m7nvax-7uk707-5z1q25-qhq9bm\" data-cel-widget=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"168137482X\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"o0t7zw-b5bli5-hqbmfy-pw8s9h\" data-cel-widget=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"168137482X\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"7vwnbe-17pb41-5ao13b-d4ld4g\" data-cel-widget=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"celwidget c-f\" data-csa-op-log-render=\"\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"DsUnknown\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"DsUnknown-4\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-painter=\"tell-amazon-desktop-cards\" data-csa-c-id=\"8988lp-hb5u05-hq5ww7-lppxt4\" data-cel-widget=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_3\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"CardInstanceMFcCj6nsIXWvXHQdjGbKiQ\" data-card-metrics-id=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_3\" data-acp-tracking=\"{}\" data-mix-claimed=\"true\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098158915893,"sku":null,"price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/selfPortrait.jpg?v=1783304531"},{"product_id":"close-to-the-knives-a-memoir-of-disintegration-by-david-wojnarowicz","title":"Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eClose to the Knives\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, David Wojnarowicz gives us an important and timely document: a collection of creative essays -- a scathing, sexy, sublimely humorous and honest personal testimony to the \"Fear of Diversity in America.\" From the author's violent childhood in suburbia to eventual homelessness on the streets and piers of New York City, to recognition as one of the most provocative artists of his generation -- \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eClose to the Knives\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eis his powerful and iconoclastic memoir. Street life, drugs, art and nature, family, AIDS, politics, friendship and acceptance: Wojnarowicz challenges us to examine our lives -- politically, socially, emotionally, and aesthetically.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098159046965,"sku":null,"price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/CloseToTheKnives.jpg?v=1783304686"},{"product_id":"the-wonderful-world-that-almost-was-a-life-of-peter-hujar-and-paul-thek-by-andrew-durbin-1","title":"The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek by Andrew Durbin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Paul Thek met Peter Hujar in the winter of 1956 in Coral Gables, Florida, a slow-simmering connection began to burn. Thek, twenty-three and living in Miami, was handsome and itching to make it as a painter; in the twenty-two-year-old Hujar, a shy, sensual photographer, he’d found a kindred spirit. By 1960, they were dating and living in New York, beginning decades of sex, love, competition, and reconciliation―an entanglement that changed American art forever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSurrounded by a robust creative scene populated by Susan Sontag, Andy Warhol, Fran Lebowitz, John Waters, and David Wojnarowicz, Thek and Hujar’s profoundly influential careers, from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, differed as much as the men themselves. The unpredictable and often overlooked Thek crafted visceral installations and sculptures, while Hujar, celebrated and sociable, took penetrating portraits of his world, queer and otherwise. Yet even at their most estranged, and even after their deaths from AIDS, both men were united by a pursuit of liberation―from artistic and sexual limits, from anything short of changing the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAndrew Durbin’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Wonderful World That Almost Was\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e unravels, for the first time, the intertwined stories and work of two boundary-burning, paradigm-tilting, never-more-relevant American artists. Weaving together deft art criticism with moving portraits of both men’s inner lives, and assembled with exhaustive research, Durbin’s book is an ode to a lost but still-living world―and two men who defined it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098159669557,"sku":null,"price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/TheWonderfulWorld.jpg?v=1783304802"},{"product_id":"state-of-grace-by-joy-williams","title":"State of Grace by Joy Williams","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt is the story of Kate, despised by her mother, bound to her father by ties stronger and darker than blood. It is the story of her attempted escapes—in detached sexual encounters, at a Southern college populated by spoiled and perverse beauties, and in a doomed marriage to a man who cannot understand what she is running from. Witty, erotic, searing acute, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eState of Grace\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e bears the inimitable stamp of one of our finest and most provocative writers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098163601717,"sku":null,"price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/StateOfGrace.jpg?v=1783304936"},{"product_id":"la-batarde-by-violette-leduc","title":"LA Batarde by Violette Leduc","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"bookDescription\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"bookDescription_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"0374513716\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"pnu6r4-u4ae1k-j097oq-kvje8v\" data-cel-widget=\"bookDescription_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn obsessive and revealing self-portrait of a remarkable woman humiliated by the circumstances of her birth and by her physical appearance, LA Bâtarde relates Violette Leduc's long search for her own identity through a series of agonizing and passionate love affairs with both men and women. When first published, La Bâtarde was compared to the work of Jean Genet for the frank depiction of sexual escapades and immoral behavior. A confession that contains portraits of several famous French authors, this book is more than just a scintillating memoir—like that of Henry Miller or Charles Bukowski, Leduc's brilliant writing style and attention to language transform this autobiography into a work of art.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"0374513716\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"gor7gm-hq9z76-ka6grr-xfpfcw\" data-cel-widget=\"globalStoreInfoBullets_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"0374513716\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"4itpry-28j74y-7bbhff-zeww9a\" data-cel-widget=\"buyingOptionNostosBadge_feature_div\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" class=\"celwidget\" data-feature-name=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"tellAmazon\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\" data-csa-c-asin=\"0374513716\" data-csa-c-is-in-initial-active-row=\"false\" data-csa-c-id=\"gt0k3q-914yfg-vnfo7n-evagdu\" data-cel-widget=\"tellAmazon_feature_div\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"celwidget c-f\" data-csa-op-log-render=\"\" data-csa-c-content-id=\"DsUnknown\" data-csa-c-slot-id=\"DsUnknown-3\" data-csa-c-type=\"widget\" data-csa-c-painter=\"tell-amazon-desktop-cards\" data-csa-c-id=\"ryu9gn-yyi5en-pcnopy-hbab3d\" data-cel-widget=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_2\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"CardInstancepWm571WBmWhlyRCOXB0tVw\" data-card-metrics-id=\"tell-amazon-desktop_DetailPage_2\" data-acp-tracking=\"{}\" data-mix-claimed=\"true\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Womb House Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53098166190389,"sku":null,"price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0965\/6247\/9413\/files\/Screenshot2026-07-05at7.34.24PM.png?v=1783305278"}],"url":"https:\/\/wombhousebooks.com\/collections\/books-that-ruined-our-lives.oembed","provider":"Womb House Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}