The New Republic—Salon at the Strand (with Vivian Gornick)

Each month, The New Republic will sit down with a lauded author to discuss their latest work in depth, and their works in progress.

Vivian Gornick, one of America’s most beloved writers, celebrates a life of passionate reading with Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader. In nine essays that traverse literary criticism, memoir, and biography, she muses on the importance of reading and re-reading as life progresses. From identifying with multiple characters in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, to assessing womanhood in Colette’s The Vagabond and The Shackle, to soaking in Natalia Ginzburg, “a writer whose work has often made me love life more,” her essays are luminous hymns to the books and writers who have shaped her life. Guided by Gornick’s trademark verve and insight, Unfinished Business is a masterful appreciation of literature’s power to illuminate our lives from a peerless writer and thinker who “still read[s] to feel the power of Life with a capital L.”

Vivian Gornick is the author of several books, including the acclaimed memoir Fierce Attachments, reissued as an FSG Classic in 2005; the essay collections The End of the Novel of Love and The Men in My Life, both of which were nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; and The Odd Woman and the City, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She began her career as a staff writer for The Village Voice in 1969, and her work has since appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, and many other publications.

Laura Marsh is the literary editor of The New Republic and co-host of the podcast The Politics of Everything. She has written for the New York Review of Books, Dissent, Bookforum, The Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review. Previously she was an editor at the New York Review of Books.

This event is free to attend–RSVP here! You can reserve a copy of Unfinished Business to pick up at the event here. Please note that payment is required for all online orders at time of checkout. This event will take place in the Rare Book Room, located on the 3rd floor of the Strand, accessible via the stairs or elevator at 826 Broadway (at 12th Street).

Doors open 30 minutes before the start of the event.

Can’t attend the event? You can preorder a signed copy of Unfinished Business here.