The Cost of Living
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The Cost of Living
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Narrated by:
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Juliet Stevenson
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Written by:
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Deborah Levy
About this listen
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018
Longlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
From the twice-Booker-shortlisted author comes a witty and audacious examination of writing and womanhood
"Life falls apart. We try to get a grip. We try to hold it together. And then we realize that we don't want to hold it together."
Crystalline, witty, and audacious, The Cost of Living addresses itself to the dual experiences of writing and of womanhood, examining what is essential in each. Following the acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, which reflected deeply on the nature of gender politics and a life in letters, The Cost of Living returns to the same subject and to the same life, to find a writer in radical flux. If a woman dismantles her life, expands it and puts it back together in a new shape, how might she describe this new composition? "Words have to open the mind. When words close the mind you can be sure that someone has been reduced to nothingness."
In this elegiac second instalment of her "living autobiography", Deborah Levy considers what it means to live with value and meaning and pleasure. The Cost of Living is a vital and astonishing testimony, as distinctive, wide-ranging and original as Levy's acclaimed novels.
©2018 Bloomsbury Publishing (P)2021 Hamish HamiltonWhat the critics say
On GQ's list of "110 best books to read right now"
“A flinty and moving memoir . . . [Levy] reclaims herself from the “societal story” that has denied middle-aged women the right to revel in the same appetites and desires as their younger selves. Her route to freedom comes through renewed dedication to her craft while enduring the privations of a damp garden shed, enjoying her peregrinations on an electric bike, tending to herself and her needs.” (The Globe and Mail)
“Utterly spectacular...” (Toronto Star)