Essays After Eighty
- ISBN-10
- 0544287045
- ISBN-13
- 9780544287044
- Category
- Literary Collections
- Pages
- 134
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-07-01
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Author
- Donald Hall
Description
From a former Poet Laureate, a new collection of essays delivering a gloriously unexpected view from the vantage point of very old age Donald Hall has lived a remarkable life of letters, a career capped by a National Medal of the Arts, awarded by the president. Now, in the “unknown, unanticipated galaxy” of very old age, he is writing searching essays that startle, move, and delight. In the transgressive and horrifyingly funny “No Smoking,” he looks back over his lifetime, and several of his ancestors’ lifetimes, of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, packs of them every day. Hall paints his past: “Decades followed each other — thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty extended the bliss of fifty . . .” And, poignantly, often joyfully, he limns his present: “When I turned eighty and rubbed testosterone on my chest, my beard roared like a lion and gained four inches.” Most memorably, Hall writes about his enduring love affair with his ancestral Eagle Pond Farm and with the writing life that sustains him, every day: “Yesterday my first nap was at 9:30 a.m., but when I awoke I wrote again.”
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety
By Donald HallCementing his place alongside Roger Angell and Joan Didion as a generous and profound chronicler of loss, this final work is as original and searing as anything Hall wrote during his extraordinary literary lifetime.
-
Life Work
By Donald HallDistinguished poet Donald Hall reflects on the meaning of work, solitude, and love "The best new book I have read this year, of extraordinary nobility and wisdom.
-
Eighty-Nine Years and Still Evolving: Essays and Writings
By James Emerson HoughIn this collection of miscellaneous essays and writings, the author reflects on the serenity of retirement living in the middle of his own private certified Forest Preserve and Wildlife Habitat in southeast Indiana, the inspiration it ...
-
Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport (Mostly Baseball)
By Donald HallDescribes the author's experiences playing and watching baseball, examines sports writers, and discusses basketball, football, and ping pong
-
Info We Trust: How to Inspire the World with Data
By RJ AndrewsThis book shows how to arrange data into stories that deliver insights and inspiration. Rich with practical details, INFO WE TRUST surfaces timeless principles to empower all to grow our knowledge and do great things together with data.
-
Here at Eagle Pond
By Donald HallIn these tender essays, Hall shares his memories and thoughts on growing up in New Hampshire on his grandparent's dairy farm, of the seasons, and of his connection to the land, his family, and his coming home.
-
Without: Poems
By Donald HallA collection of poems elegizing the author's late wife examines her suffering and death, the doctors and nurses who tried to help her, and the friends and relatives that grieved for her
-
Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry
By Donald Hall"Hall's direct tone softens the extraordinariness of his life . . . When asked, at a Library of Congress dinner, the subject of his writing, he replied, 'Love, death, and New Hampshire.' " — THE NEW YORKER making of a poet begins with ...
-
No One Asked for This: Essays
By Cazzie DavidFrom writer/director Cazzie David comes a series of comedic essays about anxiety, social media, generational malaise, and growing up in a famous family.
-
White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946–2006
By Donald HallThis retrospective collection of verse from the former US poet laureate and National Medal of Arts winner spans six decades of celebrated work.