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As book reviewer for NPR’s Fresh Air and contributor to many publications, Maureen Corrigan literally reads for a living. For as long as she can remember, books have been at the center of her life, a never-failing source of astonishment, hard truths, new horizons, and welcome companionship. Now Corrigan has added a volume of her own to the shelf of classics, by reading her life of reading with all the attention to complexity, wit, and intelligence that any good book–or life–deserves.
Part memoir, part coming-of-age story, and part reflection on favorite and influential books, Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading views the world through an open book. From her unpretentious girlhood in the working-class neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, Corrigan has always had a book at her side.
We read this life in reverse as Corrigan begins the book as a “professional reader” always conscious of the many people, like her own mother, who don’t “get” the power of reading, and we end up as a fly on the wall of this only child in Queens, transported to exciting yet threatening worlds beyond her small apartment, a block from the #7 subway.
Corrigan’s references range from Richard Wright to Philip Roth to Chekhov, but certain themes emerge. Corrigan subverts the classic “man conquers mountain or ocean or battlefield” genre by juxtaposing it with what she calls “female extreme adventure novels”–books such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the Collected Poems of Stevie Smith, and Anna Quindlen’s Black and Blue, which feature women quietly fighting for their lives.
Hard-boiled detective stories that cloak social criticisms of work and family beneath their protagonist’s trench coat–-Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, Sara Paretsky’s mysteries–are another abiding passion. More surprising, and perhaps more revealing, is her taste for tales of Catholic martyrs and secular saints, a holdover from her days in parochial school that left an indelible impression.
Moving from page to life and back again, Corrigan writes ultimately of fashioning a complicated, sometimes contradictory self out of her class background, her classroom teaching, and her own classics of literature; a list of favorite books is also included. In Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, Maureen Corrigan invites us to accompany her on the journey of a lifetime.
- Sales Rank: #1434050 in Books
- Published on: 2005-09-06
- Released on: 2005-09-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.53" h x .85" w x 6.40" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 201 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Corrigan, the book reviewer for NPR's Fresh Air and mystery columnist for the Washington Post, makes her own book debut with an often longwinded and tedious account of how books have shaped her life. It's clear from every page that Corrigan is obsessed with reading books. Her compulsion is a bit far reaching, however: she offers books as the reason why she delayed getting married and why she adopted her daughter in China. She intersperses lengthy descriptions and analysis of her favorite books, like Jane Eyre, Lucky Jim and Karen (Marie Killilea's memoir of her daughter) with stories from her own life. At times, the book reads like a feminist diatribe against the injustices female authors (and graduate students) have endured and the stereotypical portrayal of female characters. In its favor, the book allows readers to reexperience some perennial favorites, such as Pride and Prejudice and The Maltese Falcon. Corrigan does speak to the ability of books to provide escape and solace, and for the creation of characters we can relate to, but these few gems are buried deep in text so thick and analytical that the reader is often left gasping for air.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Corrigan's passion for books has led her to become an English professor, a book reviewer for NPR's Fresh Air, and the author of the Washington Post's detective-fiction column. Corrigan now celebrates the joys of reading in a peppery narrative that blends glimpses into her personal life, especially her joy in adopting her and her husband's Chinese daughter, with smart and socially conscious literary criticism. We read, Corrigan opines, in search of authenticity, which can be found in several popular genres. The first is what Corrigan calls "the female extreme-adventure tale," fiction about the inner lives of women whose adventures often require more waiting then globe-trotting, more caring for others than daredevilry. Her examples range from Jane Austen to Anna Quindlen. The second literary gold mine is detective fiction, which she prizes for its insight into questions of class. Corrigan then considers the indelible Catholic narratives she read as a girl. Immensely likable, eclectic, and dynamic, Corrigan is as adept in her analysis of life as she is in her fresh and significant interpretations of books. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Advance praise for Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading
“It’s always fascinating to read someone on how her life has been changed by reading, especially one of America’s most perceptive book critics. You find yourself comparing your reactions to hers and learning about books you want to read. But this reflective and entertaining memoir is about more than just books. It’s about being a daughter and an adoptive mother, a student and a teacher, a feminist and a skeptical Catholic–about being Maureen Corrigan. Learning about Maureen’s life made me think about how my own life was shaped by books.”
–Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air
“If you wonder about the secret life of bookworms, this is the book that will open up the rich rewards of going around with your nose stuck in a book. Corrigan’s narrative is delightful, absorbing, and engaging, with surprising leaps between the books she reads and the story of her own life.”
–Bobbie Ann Mason, author of An Atomic Romance
“ ‘Leave me alone, I’m reading’ is precisely what you will be insisting when you have Maureen Corrigan’s splendid memoir in your hands. What a great piece of work! The author not only writes about books in her customary incisive and beguiling manner, but also shows how books can change someone’s life. Whether your taste runs to Pride and Prejudice or The Maltese Falcon, you will love Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. It’s the book for people who love books.”
–Susan Isaacs, author of Any Place I Hang My Hat
“From the first page of the introduction to Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, I knew I was in the hands of another book luster. I valued her insights into contemporary and classical literature and the connections she made to her own life, but I especially loved her enthusiasm for books and the act of reading.”
–Nancy Pearl, author of More Book Lust: Recommended Readings for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
Most helpful customer reviews
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
A good introduction
By BookNerdSeattle
The title of the book, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, immediately caught my attention. So did the opening line of the introduction: "It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book."
But somewhere in the middle of the introduction, I realized that Maureen Corrigan was outlining what was to come in the rest of the book. She took about a page to describe each of the chapters that were to follow. I should have ended my reading there.
What followed were thesis papers merged with autobiographical information to create chapters. Even more disappointing was the fact that Corrigan gave away the endings to many of the books she discussed. Now I have an interesting list of books I'd like to read based on her recommendations, but I already know how each will turn out.
Corrigan warns readers in the introduction that "there's no such thing as travel insurance when it comes to reading." So I guess I have only myself to blame. I should have stopped reading when she gave away the ending to Bronte's Villette.
So why did I keep reading? Because this is a well-written, interesting book. Corrigan's autobiographical details of her "book life" and real life show such passion that it's difficult to put her book down.
52 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
Books & Life
By Josh K.
If you love books, if you love to think about books, then "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading" should be at the top of that pile next to your bed. Corrigan's personal memoir/literary exploration is smart, interesting, opinionated, extremely well-written, frequently stimulating and thought-provoking, and always sharply - yet self-deprecatingly - funny. I found this rare combination of attributes impossible to resist.
Here are two specific examples of why I loved - rather than just "liked" or "appreciated" - "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading." Example No. 1: This book about the author's lifelong love of, and near obsession with, reading begins with the following epigraph, a quote from the contractor fixing the leaking, book-filled basement in Corrigan's home: "Bet you didn't learn anything about foundations when you were in graduate school for English." Example No. 2: describing the difference between herself and the people she knows who have no deeply felt appreciation for books (or the stacks of them that made her graduate school apartment look like the warehouse in the final scene of "Citizen Kane"), Corrigan writes: "They think I lack common sense; I think they lack a part of their souls."
The book moves seamlessly back and forth from the seminal episodes and people in Corrigan's life, to the most meaningful of the thousands (millions?) of books she has read. In both realms, Corrigan meanders effortlessly from the deeply significant (the adoption of her daughter from China) and the high-brow (the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontes), to the ridiculous (grad school in-fighting) and the (seemingly) low-brow (Nancy Drew and Dashiell Hammett). Like Stephen Jay Gould illuminating the beauty and complexities of evolution, Corrigan can explicate the deeper significance of literary masterpieces without talking down to her audience, and relate these timeless themes to the comedy and tragedy and absurdity of daily life.
Perhaps the best way to sum up how I felt about "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading" is to say that it left me wanting to spend a week or two on some beach with Corrigan and a group of friends, talking about life and books, books and life.
41 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
Thoroughly enjoyable.
By Robert Beveridge
Maureen Corrigan, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading (Random House, 2005)
One of the best things about this book-- a no-brainer, really-- is that when morons try to strike up conversations with you in public while you're reading (were these people born in a barn, really?) by asking you what it is you are reading, all you have to do is show them the title. If you're lucky, they'll take the hint. Conversation ended, and you can get back to Maureen Corrigan's interesting dual meditation on books and life. (If the person persists, and asks the next obvious question-- "What's it about?"-- unload on that person with both barrels. They're obviously not going to pick up on subtlety.) Thus, keeping a copy of it close by is pretty much a necessity for any dedicated reader.
As to the book's content, it should be close to the heart of that same dedicated reader; it's half about books and half about life-- specifically, Maureen Corrigan's life. She starts off with the feminine version of the extreme-adventure tale (with women, the extreme-adventure tale isn't about climbing mountains or disappearing in the perfect storm, but about such mundane, but still horrific, tests as abuse, childbirth, the possibility of spinsterhood in the Brontes and Austens of the literary landscape). Everything stems from here; Corrigan's other chapters cover hardboiled detective fiction and Catholic martyr tales, variations on the extreme-adventure theme, all tied to Corrigan's life. Not that she (usually) compares herself to the heroines of these tales, but it's still pretty easy to trace the parallels. It also helps, for the dedicated reader, the Corrigan has pretty much the dream job-- she does reviews and interviews for NPR's premiere arts show, Fresh Air. Yes, there's a good deal to identify with.
Most of the criticisms of the book I've heard deal with the idea that the autobiographical bits don't hold up as well as the bits where she's talking about books. I didn't find that to be the case; I thought the whole book was rather engaging. Corrigan has led an interesting life; she doesn't take on the weepier-than-thou attitude of the run-of-the-mill memoir, instead looking at her life in the same way she's discussing the novels under consideration. It may be a small difference in the general scheme of things, but it's a valuable one, in my opinion.
A good, solid book. Worth your time. *** ½
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