Reading Style

Jenny Davidson teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She has published two books on eighteenth-century British literature, including Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century, and four novels. She blogs at Light Reading (jennydavidson.blogspot.com).

Davidson is the ideal reader every writer wishes for, who catches every nuance and every sly allusion, who is alive to rhythm and color and orchestration. She does not just read for that ostensibly load-bearing stuff that is labeled 'meaning,' but detects all of the layers of meaning that are conveyed purely by style. Her book is a gift and a deep pleasure, because what makes her such a virtuoso reader is that she is also a first-rate writer. -- Luc Sante, author of Low Life Charming and erudite. Publishers Weekly Jenny Davidson has the rare gift of being warmly analytical-highly intelligent but never mandarin, authoritative and intimate at the same time. Reading her discussions of writers ranging from Marcel Proust to Wayne Koestenbaum-by way of Jonathan Lethem and George Eliot-is like being in the company of a very clever friend as she unfolds the treasures of her bookshelf: one who enlightens without condescension, and who is eager to share the pleasures of a well-turned sentence while also being able to point out the satisfactions to be found in a bad one. I loved being in her company on the page, and left it inspired by her appetitive example. -- Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch Consistently insightful into classic (and sometimes not so classic) fiction. -- Tyler Cowen Marginal Revolution There is much to value here. -- Kate Womersley Times Literary Supplement [A] delightful new book. -- Mark Kingwell World Literatre Today

• 1. The Glimmer Factor: Anthony Burgess's 99 Novels 2. Lord Leighton, Liberace, and the Advantages of Bad Writing: Helen DeWitt, Harry Stephen Keeler, Lionel Shriver, George Eliot 3. Mouthy Pleasures and the Problem of Momentum: Gary Lutz, Lolita, Lydia Davis, Jonathan Lethem 4. The Acoustical Elegance of Aphorism: Kafka, Fielding, Austen, Flaubert 5. Tempo, Repetition, and a Taxonomy of Pacing: Peter Temple, Neil Gaiman, A. L. Kennedy, Edward P. Jones 6. Late Style: The Golden Bowl and Swann's Way 7. Disordered Sentences: Georges Perec, Roland Barthes, Wayne Koestenbaum, Luc Sante 8. Details That Linger and the Charm of Voluntary Reading: George Pelecanos, Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon 9. The Ideal Bookshelf: The Rings of Saturn and The Line of Beauty 10. The Bind of Literature and the Bind of Life: Voices from Chernobyl, Thomas Bernhard, Karl Ove Knausgaard Notes A Reading List Index