Description
With meticulous research and a vivid awareness of why we should care about these losses, Judith Schalansky, the acclaimed author of Atlas of Remote Islands, lets these objects speak for themselves: she ventriloquizes the tone of other sources, burrows into the language of contemporaneous accounts, and deeply interrogates the very notion of memory.
Reviews
"There are essays of wry wisdom...Jackie Smith’s translation shimmers, various as the damselflies." — 4Columns
"It is hard to imagine a better guide to the resources of hope than Schalansky’s deeply engaging inventory." — Michael Cronin, Irish Times
"Twelve fictional essays comprise this stunning work depicting animals, places, objects, and buildings that are lost forever... Not to be read quickly but savored and contemplated." — Library Journal (starred)
"Schalansky treats each of the 12 objects cataloged in her new book with an almost religious awe, like a believer giving herself up to be inhabited by spirits." — Los Angeles Review of Books
"Brilliant....an ambulatory and often playful meditation on history and forgetting." — Kate Zambreno, New York Times
"Schalansky cements her reputation as a peerless chronicler of the fabulous, the faraway, and the forgotten." — Publishers Weekly (starred)
"In rich, evocative, precise prose—beautifully translated from the German by Jackie Smith—Schalansky recalls these lost things and meditates on their destruction, all the while interrogating the extent to which memory—or writing—can compensate for material loss." — Francesa Wade, The Baffler
"A fine example of everyone’s favourite genre: the genre-defying book, inspired by history, filtered through imagination and finished with a jeweller’s eye for detail." — John Self, The Guardian
"In each case Schalansky has alighted on fascinating material, and her delicately poetic turn of phrase is evident on every page." — The Telegraph
"Instead of a requiem for what is gone, Schalansky sings a dirge for what remains." — The White Review
"The translation from the German by Jackie Smith…is a triumph of subtle accuracy." — Wall Street Journal
"An exploration of extinct animals and objects told through dazzling stories that question the bounds of memory and myth." — Kirkus (starred)
"The most wondrous book of the year: by taking the vanished and turning it into a great piece of literature, the author has performed a magical act." — Die Zeit
"A celebration of what can still be accomplished with imagination, paper. and ink." — Anthony Doerr
"Exquisite. Like the hero of Joris-Karl Huysmans’s novel A Rebours, who sets off for London from Paris but realizes he need go no further than the Gare du Nord, Schalansky decides to make a virtue of absence." — Robert Macfarlane
"Utterly fascinating." — Rosmarie Waldrop
"A simmering free-association excursion through time and space, loosely following the scent of recollection or the ghosts of the archives. As in memory itself, Schalanksy fills the gaps left between data points with emotion, speculation, or pure fantasy." — Kate Silzer, Hyperallergic
