happy_stomach's review against another edition
3.0
I give five stars to the autobiographical essays that make up the first part of this volume. I could have read a thousand more pages of Messud’s personal stories spanning generations, countries, and all sorts of privileged, worldly experience. And more stories about her dogs! It was the autobiographical essays that made me curious to learn which books Messud loves and that’s what I took from the second part of the book—I took the “which” but, surprising to me, couldn’t bring myself to care at all about the “whys” she presents in her criticism. Same with with art criticism—I found very little convincing, even for artists like Sally Mann about whom I know a passing amount.
ohhsusannah's review against another edition
3.0
3.5, though admittedly I skipped some of the art/lit crit essays.
sarahc3319's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting and inspiring, the best praise I can think of for an autobiography. Messud's family history is nothing short of fascinating: her grandparents and parents were educated, opinionated, well-traveled and there's clearly so much love and admiration between the generations. Her literary and art criticism inspired me to revisit Teju Cole, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Mann and learn more about Magda Szabo, Alice Neel and probably others. A treat of a book.
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