{"title":"Karen Olsson","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the insightful and beautifully written works of Karen Olsson. Delve into thought-provoking non-fiction and memoirs that explore culture, politics, and personal experiences with depth and clarity. Start browsing now.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"weil-conjectures-book-karen-olsson-9781526607546","title":"The Weil Conjectures","description":"_______________  'Beguiling ... I was riveted. Olsson is evocative on curiosity as an appetite of the mind, on the pleasure of glutting oneself on knowledge' - New York Times  'A wonderful book ... Reading it is akin to kicking a can along the road of higher learning' - Patti Smith  'A remarkable tour de force' - Standpoint _______________  Simone Weil: philosopher, political activist, mystic – and sister to André, one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. These two extraordinary siblings formed an obsession for Karen Olsson, who studied mathematics at Harvard, only to turn to writing as a vocation.  When Olsson got hold of the 1940 letters between the siblings, she found they shared a curiosity about the inception of creative thought – that flash of insight – that Olsson experienced as both a mathematics student, and later, a novelist.   Following this thread of connections, The Weil Conjectures explores the lives of Simone and André, the lore and allure of mathematics, and its significance in Olsson’s own life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49522461540625,"sku":"GOR011166841","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738121937169,"sku":"NGR9781526607546","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52391373308177,"sku":"CIN1526607549G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1526607549.jpg?v=1764845374"},{"product_id":"weil-conjectures-book-karen-olsson-9781250619570","title":"The Weil Conjectures","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Pick and \u003ci\u003eParis Review\u003c\/i\u003e Staff Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"A wonderful book.\" --Patti Smith\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I was riveted. Olsson is evocative on curiosity as an appetite of the mind, on the pleasure of glutting oneself on knowledge.\" --Parul Sehgal, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An eloquent blend of memoir and biography exploring the Weil siblings, math, and creative inspiration\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Karen Olsson's stirring and unusual third book, \u003ci\u003eThe Weil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e, tells the story of the brilliant Weil siblings--Simone, a philosopher, mystic, and social activist, and André, an influential mathematician--while also recalling the years Olsson spent studying math. As she delves into the lives of these two singular French thinkers, she grapples with their intellectual obsessions and rekindles one of her own. For Olsson, as a math major in college and a writer now, it's the odd detours that lead to discovery, to moments of insight. Thus \u003ci\u003eThe Weil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e--an elegant blend of biography and memoir and a meditation on the creative life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Personal, revealing, and approachable, \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWeil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e eloquently explores math as it relates to intellectual history, and shows how sometimes the most inexplicable pursuits turn out to be the most rewarding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49625199018257,"sku":"GOR013698112","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53019085766929,"sku":"CIN1250619572VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1250619572.jpg?v=1771499542"},{"product_id":"all-the-houses-book-karen-olsson-9780374281328","title":"All the Houses","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA b\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eittersweet, biting, sharply observed family drama from the author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWaterloo\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter her father has a heart attack and subsequent surgery, Helen Atherton returns to her hometown of Washington, D.C., to help take care of him and, perhaps more honestly, herself. She's been living in Los Angeles, trying to work in Hollywood, slowly spiraling into a depression fueled by hours spent watching C-SPAN-her obsession with politics a holdover from a childhood interrupted by her father's involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. I don't know whether to think of him as a coconspirator or a complicit bystander or just someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though the rest of the world has forgotten that scandal, the Atherton family never quite recovered. While living with her father in her childhood home, Helen tries to piece together the political moves that pulled her family apart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAll the Houses\u003c\/i\u003e is, at its heart, a father-daughter story. With razor-sharp prose, an alluring objectivity, and a dry sense of humor, Karen Olsson writes about the shape-shifting of our family relationships when outside forces work their way in-how Washington turns people into unnatural versions of themselves, how problematic and overbearing sisters can be, and how familial nostalgia that sets in during early adulthood can prove counterproductive to actually becoming an adult.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49709350093073,"sku":"CIN0374281327G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374281327.jpg?v=1751071568"},{"product_id":"weil-conjectures-book-karen-olsson-9780374287610","title":"The Weil Conjectures","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Pick and \u003ci\u003eParis Review\u003c\/i\u003e Staff Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"A wonderful book.\" --Patti Smith\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I was riveted. Olsson is evocative on curiosity as an appetite of the mind, on the pleasure of glutting oneself on knowledge.\" --Parul Sehgal, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An eloquent blend of memoir and biography exploring the Weil siblings, math, and creative inspiration\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Karen Olsson's stirring and unusual third book, \u003ci\u003eThe Weil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e, tells the story of the brilliant Weil siblings--Simone, a philosopher, mystic, and social activist, and André, an influential mathematician--while also recalling the years Olsson spent studying math. As she delves into the lives of these two singular French thinkers, she grapples with their intellectual obsessions and rekindles one of her own. For Olsson, as a math major in college and a writer now, it's the odd detours that lead to discovery, to moments of insight. Thus \u003ci\u003eThe Weil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e--an elegant blend of biography and memoir and a meditation on the creative life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Personal, revealing, and approachable, \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWeil Conjectures\u003c\/i\u003e eloquently explores math as it relates to intellectual history, and shows how sometimes the most inexplicable pursuits turn out to be the most rewarding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50003137167633,"sku":"CIN0374287619A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50922716102929,"sku":"CIN0374287619VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52095629099281,"sku":"CIN0374287619G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374287619.jpg?v=1750813445"},{"product_id":"waterloo-book-karen-olsson-9780312425593","title":"Waterloo","description":"\u003cp\u003eNick Lasseter is in a slump--as a reporter for the \u003ci\u003eWaterloo Weekly,\u003c\/i\u003e and in every other part of his life as well. When he grudgingly agrees to write a piece about a rising female Republican legislator, he stumbles onto a political fight in which the good guys and bad guys start to seem interchangeable. And not even the deceased can be relied upon to stick to their stories when Nick gets involved with a political insider. As they search the dim depths of a civic past that's anything but dead and buried, they find that some things never change--things like the moral ambiguity of practical politics and the sad, hilarious cluelessness of young men in love.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Bittersweet and biting, elegiac and sharply observed, \u003ci\u003eWaterloo\u003c\/i\u003e is a portrait of a generation in search of itself--and a love letter to the slackers, rockers, hustlers, hacks, and hangers-on who populate Austin, Texas--from a formidable new intelligence in American fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50297119736081,"sku":"GOR013917351","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347484119313,"sku":"CIN0312425597VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347508531473,"sku":"CIN0312425597G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53049535856913,"sku":"CIN0312425597A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53381259100433,"sku":"NIN9780312425593","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0312425597.jpg?v=1750877351"},{"product_id":"weil-conjectures-book-karen-olsson-9781526607539","title":"The Weil Conjectures","description":"'A wonderful book ... Reading it is akin to kicking a can along the road of higher learning' Patti Smith   Simone Weil: famous French philosopher, writer, political activist, mystic – and sister to André, one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. For Karen Olsson, who studied mathematics at Harvard only to turn to writing as a vocation, the lives and obsessions of these two extraordinary siblings returned her to the intellectual passions of her youth.  When Olsson got hold of the 1940 letters between Simone and André, she discovered that André’s pursuit of his studies became increasingly incomprehensible to his sister, leading to Simone directly questioning him about the value of such rarefied knowledge as it applied to the lived experience. Struck by this conflict, Olsson revisits her own time at university, how she came to be consumed by mathematics, and the unexpected similarities that can be found between two seemingly opposed subjects. At the core of the book lies her curiosity about the inception of creative thought — that flash of insight — experienced by writers and mathematicians alike.  A rare work of non-fiction that intricately weaves together biography, memoir, history and philosophy, and written with prose of precision and poetic lucidity, The Weil Conjectures is nothing short of a complete seduction in the art of mathematics, and the mysterious nature of scientific and creative thought.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50379330978065,"sku":"CIN1526607530VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50959349874961,"sku":"GOR009912850","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51693816185105,"sku":"CIN1526607530G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1526607530.jpg?v=1751449496"},{"product_id":"all-the-houses-book-karen-olsson-9781250097439","title":"All the Houses","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter her father's heart attack and subsequent surgery, Helen Atherton returns to her hometown of Washington, D.C., to help take care of him and, perhaps more honestly, herself. She's been living in Los Angeles, trying to work in Hollywood, slowly spiraling into a depression fueled by hours spent watching C-SPAN---her obsession with politics a holdover from a childhood interrupted by her father's involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The rest of the world might have forgotten it, but the Atherton family never quite recovered. With sharp, witty, and suspenseful prose, \u003ci\u003eAll the Houses\u003c\/i\u003e reveals their story, as Helen pieces together the political moves that pulled her family apart.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51021969260817,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51021971423505,"sku":"NIN9781250097439","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1250097436.jpg?v=1750754472"},{"product_id":"waterloo-book-karen-olsson-9780374286262","title":"Waterloo","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51326169907473,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51326172332305,"sku":"CIN0374286264G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53246786076945,"sku":"CIN0374286264VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374286264.jpg?v=1750782101"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-karen-olsson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}