Words and Worlds

A Pulitzer-prize-winning American novelist has compiled a charming, illuminating strand of essays that span from her first blundering writing efforts as Radcliffe College student, to later life when, having achieved the mastery of a critically acclaimed author, she muses on such diverse topics as fashion and children’s literature, while recounting her intimate acquaintance with other preeminent writers and thinkers such as James Merrill and Barbara Epstein and Edward Gorey.

In this candid and bluntly humorous collection of essays on a wide range of topics, Lurie begins with a portrait of her life at Radcliffe during World War II when the smartest women in the country were treated like second-class citizens, the most scholarly among them expected to work in factories to support the war effort. She moves on to her unheralded, clumsy attempts and near failure to be a writer and, finally having reached a level of recognition, the good fortune of forming close relationships with other writers and editors and great thinkers, including Robert Silver of The New York Review of Books, the poet James Merrill, and the illustrator, Edward Gorey. On this fascinating journey, we are amused by her insightful, often delightfully funny meditations on topics such as “deconstruction” and beloved children’s literature series such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter, and Babar. Words and Worlds is a crowning reminiscence from a much beloved and celebrated writer.