A Primer for Forgetting

An absorbing exploration of memory, creative freedom and the importance of forgetting . . . wonderfully inventive . . . intriguing and original * * Guardian * * In A Primer for Forgetting, that bold yet gentle intellectual adventurer, Lewis Hyde, harrows the bottomless mysteries of memory and forgetting, trauma and recovery, amnesia and commemoration, reconciliation and forgiveness. If this deep, poignant, soulful, inquisitive, gently tragic and disarmingly erudite book were nine times longer, I would still have felt sad when I realized it was coming to an end -- MICHAEL CHABON The sequence of Lewis Hyde's brilliant cultural interventions here reaches a new height, but also a new level of intimacy and compassion. The book feels not so much written as unforgotten onto the page, out of our collective desire to rescue the world -- JONATHAN LETHEM Praise for Trickster Makes This World: This book is a revelation * * The Times * * A modern classic . . . which celebrates the power of disruptive imagination * * Guardian * * A glorious grab-bag stuffed with necessary loot, a joyful plum pudding rich in treasures -- MARGARET ATWOOD * * Los Angeles Times * * An act of pure pleasure from first to last -- MICHAEL CHABON Hyde is one of our true superstars of non-fiction . . . Both brilliant (intellectually, literarily) and wise (psychologically, spiritually, you-name-itally) -- DAVID FOSTER WALLACE A masterpiece . . . The thrilling thing about reading non-fiction such as Hyde's is not just that it gives you new thoughts: it also changes the way you think * * Scotland on Sunday * * Brilliant . . . By the time he is done he has folded language, culture, and the very habit of being human into his ken * * New Yorker * *