Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism And Writings - Softcover

Carter, Angela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140276955 ISBN 13: 9780140276954

Publisher: Penguin, 1998

Synopsis

One of contemporary literature's most original and affecting novel and short story writers, Angela Carter also wrote brilliant nonfiction. "Shaking a Leg" comprises the best of her essays and criticism, much of it collected for the first time. Carter's acute observations are spiked with her pungent honesty, her devastating wit, her penchant for mockery, and her passion for the absurd. Whether discussing films or food, feminism or fantasy, science fiction or sex, Carter consistently explores new territories and overturns old ideas. From her hilarious deconstruction of "Gone With the Wind" and a delightfully wicked description of a Japanese fertility festival to enchanting accounts of her early childhood adventures or the irreverent reevaluations of D. H. Lawrence, H. P. Lovecraft, and Elizabeth David, this marvelous companion to "Burning Your Boats," which collected Carter's short fiction, firmly places her among the most accomplished writers of this century. Exuberant, fierce, and dazzling, "Shaking a Leg" will satisfy her ever-increasing legion of readers.

About this title

Review:

"Shaking a Leg reveals a stunning range of interests that marks her out not just as one of our greatest novelists and short story writers but as one of our best literary and cultural critics... If you would like better to understand the workings of the second half of our century, then this is the book" (Ali Smith Scotsman)

"Reading Shaking a Leg is like sitting down with a friend who is clever, funny, outrageous, compassionate, anecdotal and sociologically aware; someone with a great memory and a quirky, associative train of thought; someone who can make you laugh and say "yes" out loud before you turn the page to devour her next paragraph, whether it be about Hollywood or Venice, her dotty parents or her favourite writers. Carter is endlessly entertaining, endearing and down-to-earth in this admirably comprehensive collection" (Irish Times)

"It is her journalism, collected in the 1997 volume 'Shaking a Leg', to which I find myself returning again and again, struck freshly by its forthrightness, its imagination, its unpredictability - and by the sheer range of subjects on which she was fluent" (Susannah Clapp Guardian)

"The range of her interests is quite dazzling. She is the voice of an entire generation" (Washington Post)

"Shocking, willful, extravagant - every cut and quip at the same time reveals a striking intellectual acuity" (New York Times)

Book Description:

Forthright, funny, unpredictable: Carter is capable of illuminating any topic with the brilliance of her prose.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0140276955
• ISBN 13: 9780140276954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 656