How Literature Saved My Life

"Here is a mind on fire, a writer at war with the page. . . . These rigorous, high-octane, exhaustive yet taut ruminations on ambivalence, love, melancholy, and mortality are like an arrow laced with crack to the brain. [Shields'] gun-to-the-head prose explicates an all-consuming passion for reading, writing, and 'the redemptive grace of human consciousness itself."
--O, The Oprah Magazine

"In this wonderful, vastly entertaining book, he weaves together literary criticism, quotations, and his own fragmentary recollections to illustrate, in form and content, how art--real art, the kind that engages and reflects the world around it--has made his life meaningful as both creator and beholder. Shields is an elegant, charming, and very funny writer. . . . Although his subject is himself, his instructions should prove useful--inspiring even--to all readers and writers."
--The Boston Globe

"Shields is a stunning writer. Within this book lies significant passion and revelation. . . . What makes for an amazing reading experience is the piecing together an argument from the fragments. . . . The guy is a maestro."
--The Huffington Post

"Shields has an uncanny ability to tap into the short attention span of modern culture and turn it into something positive. . . . How Literature Saved My Life presents a way forward for literature in new forms."
--The A.V. Club

"Eminently readable and surprisingly life-affirming. . . . Mr. Shields has written a great book, and one which matters. . . . Uncompromisingly intelligent, blisteringly forthright, and eschewing convention at every turn. . . . Mr. Shields is one engaging writer. His enthusiasm is contagious. He cares, deeply, about his subject."
--New York Journal of Books

"There is no more interesting writer at this precise moment than David Shields. I would call three of his books among the most important we've seen in the last 15 years: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, and now this. His nonfiction books are as much galvanizing electrical fields as those of David Foster Wallace were."
--Jeff Simon, Buffalo News, Editor's Choice

"Concise, fearless, urgent. A soulful writer, a skillful storyteller, and a man on the hunt for the Exquisite. Shields is, in a writerly sense, as brave as they come. A giant, thrilling ride."
--Bookforum

"Shields has composed not a paean to the glories of narrative or language, but a work that sits somewhere between essay and memoir, resisting easy expectations. . . . altogether fascinating."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Quintessential genre-defying Shields. His writing gives you [a] sense of vertigo. It's energizing and weird, and it works."
--The Village Voice

"Shields's ideas about literature come from a place of deep love; he's not trying to destroy but rebuild what is already broken."
--ArtInfo

"I'm grateful for How Literature Saved My Life because the book has made me think again--and for the first time in a while--'Well, what is it we do when we read?' It's a damned annoying question, but it needs to be asked now and then, and Shields has asked it in a way I find resonant and moving."
--Andre Alexis, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"Thoroughly rewarding."
--London Evening Standard

"Smart, self-deprecating, and funny."
--The Plain Dealer

"What else are you looking for that's as real and interesting as another intelligent, articulate, bibliophilic human's personal revelations?"
--Austin Chronicle

"[One of] our most genial essayists. . . . You read [Shields] for the zip of his consciousness."
--Chicago Tribune

"An invigorating polemicist, as well as a subtle and amusing memoirist."
--The New Statesman (UK)

"Both a boldly written love note to that most precious of subjects, and David Shields's latest statute in his quest for 'art with a visible string to the world.'"
--HTML Giant

"What makes us read and write when it is harder than ever to 'only connect'? Examining our relationships with books."
--Salon, Editor's Pick

"We can always count on Shields to force us to probe the edges of the way we think about, read, and even write literature and criticism of any kind."
--Flavorwire, One of Ten Books That Could Save Your Life and One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2013