Bibliophobia: A Memoir Audiobook

Quotes

• Bibliophobia feels like the first book I have ever read that accords the correct (massive) weight to the role of books in my own life, reminding me how high the stakes were when I first fell in love with reading, and restoring to me the sense that books are still a matter of life and death. At once a radical analysis of the relationship between reading, writing, and suicide, and a case study in how seemingly unnarratable and overwhelming experience can be transformed into a transcendent book. A must for any obsessive reader.

  — Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot, Either/Or, and Possessed

• A moving account of the experience of loving, fearing, and resenting literature, written with the authority of a trained specialist and the solicitude of an amateur. Sarah Chihaya is funny, subtle, and—particularly when writing about her own life—as sharp as cut glass. Whether reflecting on a Toni Morrison novel or flipping through the oldest book in the world, Chihaya refuses to bracket herself out. She is always there alongside us, patient and generous but never doing us the disservice of protecting us from the text. It is there, and she is there too: that is enough. If you hate books the way I do, this one you’ll love.

  — Andrea Long Chu, New York Magazine critic, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

• An instant classic in the books-about-books genre, this heady, confiding memoir offers a refreshingly nuanced take on what books do to us. They do not always make us better, more empathetic citizens of the world. Sometimes they haunt us, force us to face things we don’t want to see, and ruin our lives. Sarah Chihaya has done something remarkable: written a book about losing yourself in books that you can lose yourself in.

  — Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can’t Sleep and Also a Poet

• Bibiliophobia gave me, well . . . bibliophobia. Sarah Chihaya has written a book that’s so wise, so funny, so understanding of all the layering foibles and tragedies that can form a person, that by the end, I held the book with a feeling of awe.

  — Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

• A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.

  — Hua Hsu, author of Stay True

• Bibliophobia is breathtaking—I gasped, I laughed, I wept, I admired as I tore through this unceasingly intelligent and unflinching examination of the stories we tell ourselves in order to die. A beautiful, rapturous, and darkly funny meditation on the mutual ruin, love, haunting, heartbreak, betrayal, fear, and dependence that we share with the books that wreck and redeem our lives.

  — Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift and The Furrows

• Bibliophobia gave me, well . . . bibliophobia. Sarah Chihaya has written a book that’s so wise, so funny, so understanding of all the layering foibles and tragedies that can form a person, that by the end, I held the book with a feeling of awe.

  — Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

• Reading Bibliophobia is like having a deep and intimate conversation with a kindred lover of literature: The world may not become better, but in this conversation we each become less isolated and lonely.

  — Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose

• A beautiful, rapturous, and darkly funny meditation on the mutual ruin, love, haunting, heartbreak, betrayal, fear, and dependence that we share with the books that wreck and redeem our lives.

  — Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows

• An instant classic. This heady, confiding memoir offers a refreshingly nuanced take on what books do to us. Sarah Chihaya has done something remarkable: written a book about losing yourself in books that you can lose yourself in.

  — Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can’t Sleep

• Sarah Chihaya is funny, subtle, and—particularly when writing about her own life—as sharp as cut glass.

  — Andrea Long Chu, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York magazine critic

• Passionate reading entwines with madness in essayist and NYU English instructor Chihaya’s plaintive debut. Evocative and astute . . . her literary analysis is thought-provoking and graceful. The result is a revelatory meditation on the unsettling resonances between life and literature.

  — Publishers Weekly, starred review

• Bibliophobia feels like the first book I have ever read that accords the correct (massive) weight to the role of books in my own life, reminding me how high the stakes were when I first fell in love with reading, and restoring to me the sense that books are still a matter of life and death. At once a radical analysis of the relationship between reading, writing, and suicide, and a case study in how seemingly unnarratable and overwhelming experience can be transformed into a transcendent book. A must for any obsessive reader.

  — Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot, Either/Or, and Possessed

• Passionate reading entwines with madness in essayist and NYU English instructor Chihaya’s plaintive debut. Evocative and astute . . . her literary analysis is thought-provoking and graceful. The result is a revelatory meditation on the unsettling resonances between life and literature.

  — Publishers Weekly, starred review

• With beauty and precision, Chihaya weaves her experiences as a lifetime reader and deep appreciator of books into accounts of heartbreak, identity issues, mental-health crises, and family. She analyzes pivotal texts with generosity, vulnerability, and humor . . . [Bibliophobia] may encourage rereading or reading anew, and taking a closer look into how literature can sustain or derail us. It also feels like a force that may become, for some, its own brand of Life Ruiner.

  — Booklist, starred review

• A seriously sharp and nuanced look at the impact books can have on us as readers, and our identities. . . . If you read one non-fiction book this month, make it this.

  — Cosmopolitan

• [Bibliophobia] is a reminder that instead of searching for a story that explains everything, we might do well to embrace the uncertainty of the unwritten pages still before us.

  — The Atlantic

• It crackles with the electrical charge of a broken taboo. . . A reading experience as haunting as the ones it describes.

  — The New Republic

• [A] stirring and sparkling new memoir.

  — The Washington Post

• [Chihaya’s] prose crackles with curious expressions during this reflection before snapping back into the analytic mindset of the scholar . . . little gems of daily moments imbued with catharsis.

  — The Los Angeles Review of Books

• Sarah Chihaya has written a book that’s so wise, so funny, so understanding of all the layering foibles and tragedies that can form a person, that by the end, I held the book with a feeling of awe.

  — Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

• Bibliophobia feels like the first book I have ever read that accords the correct (massive) weight to the role of books in my own life, reminding me how high the stakes were when I first fell in love with reading, and restoring to me the sense that books are still a matter of life and death.

  — Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot, Either/Or, and Possessed

• An instant classic. This heady, confiding memoir offers a refreshingly nuanced take on what books do to us.

  — Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can’t Sleep

• Passionate reading entwines with madness in essayist and NYU English instructor Chihaya’s plaintive debut. Evocative and astute . . .

  — Publishers Weekly, starred review

• [Bibliophobia] may encourage rereading or reading anew, and taking a closer look into how literature can sustain or derail us.

  — Booklist, starred review

• A seriously sharp and nuanced look at the impact books can have on us as readers, and our identities . . . If you read one non-fiction book this month, make it this.

  — Cosmopolitan

• [Bibliophobia] crackles with the electrical charge of a broken taboo. . . A reading experience as haunting as the ones it describes.

  — The New Republic

• [Chihaya’s] prose crackles with curious expressions during this reflection before snapping back into the analytic mindset of the scholar. . . . Little gems of daily moments imbued with catharsis.

  — The Los Angeles Review of Books

• Chihaya’s masterful storytelling weaves books and literary criticism. . . . [Bibliophobia is] alternately beautiful and painful.

  — The Rumpus

• Rich, complex, and rewarding, as the very best reading should be.

  — BookReporter

• Rich, complex, and rewarding, as the very best reading should be.

  — Bookreporter