About this item
Highlights
- Dive into the revelatory worlds of California's most exciting writers, and discover how their books uncover our history and can help us imagine our shared future.Percival Everett, Rebecca Solnit, Tommy Orange, Michael Connelly, Julie Otsuka: As John Freeman writes in California Rewritten, "Literature of so many kinds and so many genres from so many different types of people--at the highest level--has been coming out of California and from Californians for decades now.
- About the Author: John Freeman has hosted Alta's California Book Club since its founding in 2020.
- 400 Pages
- Literary Criticism, Books & Reading
Description
Book Synopsis
Dive into the revelatory worlds of California's most exciting writers, and discover how their books uncover our history and can help us imagine our shared future.
Percival Everett, Rebecca Solnit, Tommy Orange, Michael Connelly, Julie Otsuka: As John Freeman writes in California Rewritten, "Literature of so many kinds and so many genres from so many different types of people--at the highest level--has been coming out of California and from Californians for decades now." Freeman, one of the sharpest editors working today, has followed the evolution of California's literary life since his teenage years in Sacramento. In over fifty essays inspired by his hosting of Alta Journal's popular California Book Club, he offers an essential road map to California literature now. He shows us how the state's most exciting writers can unlock our understanding of the past, and how they can deepen our imaginations as we confront the most pressing issues that face our society: labor and inequality, migration and citizenship, technology and its limits, changing landscapes and climate catastrophe. Incisive and compulsively readable, California Rewritten will be a source of empowering discovery for any book lover who cares about the Golden State.
Review Quotes
Praise for How to Read a Novelist by John Freeman:
"Ranging from the profound to the amusing, Freeman eloquently appreciates novelists and the 'consolations of narrative.'" ―Booklist
"To read about the personal, emotional, mental, political, and artistic struggles and triumphs of great writers is to see them as flesh and blood human beings . . . intimate and thoughtful sketches." ―Publishers Weekly
Praise for Freeman's: California:
"Captures the western state's complex history through the eyes of both new writers and established names . . . From every facet of the literary world, this cacophony of fresh and well-known writers with every award under their collective belts movingly interprets struggles and dreams in the Sunshine State." ―Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Tells the story of California in pieces, which is the only way it can be told . . . The point―or one of them―is that, in California, one must learn to persevere. In this collection, California in all its glorious complexity comes vividly to life." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Illuminating . . . Perfect reading for our ever-accelerating times." ―NPR's Book Concierge
"Freeman's is fresh, provocative, engrossing" ―BBC.com
"There's an illustrious new literary journal in town . . . [with] fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by new voices and literary heavyweights . . . alike." ―Vogue.com
Praise for The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman:
"This anthology sets itself apart by providing an inclusive starting point for readers interested in discovering the power of the short story; it is golden for those who already recognize that power." --Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, edited by John Freeman:
"A brilliant anthology . . . There is so much excellent writing in the pages of Tales of Two Americas." --Salon
"Each contribution stands out. Each voice is unique. The only common threads in the collection are theme and excellence . . . This anthology is spectacular and devastating and provocative." --Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Masterful and affecting stories, essays, and poems by 36 writers profoundly attuned to the sources and implications of social rupture. These are sharply inquisitive and provocative works." --Booklist (starred review)
About the Author
John Freeman has hosted Alta's California Book Club since its founding in 2020. He is an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, and he edited Freeman's (2015-2023), a literary annual of new writing. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as the anthologies Tales of Two Americas, Tales of Two Planets, The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, and Sacramento Noir. He is also the author of three poetry collections, Maps, The Park, and Wind, Trees. His work is translated into more than twenty languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he lives in New York.