The Unreality of Memory

And Other Essays

By: Elisa Gabbert

Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens

We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase "Did you see?" The feeling that we're living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten - and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last.

The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end - if indeed it will - and why we can't stop fantasizing about it.

Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? With The Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world.

©2020 Elisa Gabbert (P)2020 Tantor

Thought-provoking, skillfully narrated

I really enjoyed this book. Compelling ideas, and the narrator did an excellent job. I found myself wondering how the author would approach some of these topics now that the pandemic has hit — several of these essays feel almost quaint in light of the past few months.