Still No Word from You

Notes in the Margin

By: Peter Orner

Narrated by: Chris Abernathy

A new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism

From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of the New York Times wrote, "You know from the second you pick him up that he's the real deal," comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orner's highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother's copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he's stopped short by a single word in the margin, "YES!"—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orner's solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache.

Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.

©2022 Peter Orner (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Very Engaging

I really like how the author weaves personal life memories in every chapter - memories that are inspired by books he has read. It made me think about how we are perhaps unreliable narrators to our own life. It’s a very well written book. I highly recommend this book!