{"title":"Alison Townsend","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"blue-dress-book-alison-townsend-9781893996618","title":"The Blue Dress","description":"In this quiet, clear-eyed collection Townsend meditates on the varieties of loss, childhood bereavement, depression and divorce to arrive at the realisation that it is through loss that we come into possession of some of life's most profound gifts. She articulates what it was like to grow up motherless, explores life in a step-family, scrutinises depression, breaks codes of feminine silence, and celebrates the enduring power of place.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49555647234321,"sku":"GOR012042174","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52487139229969,"sku":"NLS9781893996618","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52756099072273,"sku":"NIN9781893996618","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1893996611.jpg?v=1750803856"},{"product_id":"persephone-in-america-book-alison-townsend-9780809328963","title":"Persephone in America","description":"This book reimagines myth, loss, and redemption through the contemporary female experience. In \"\"Persephone in America\"\", Alison Townsend deftly weaves autobiography with myth in this reinvention of the tale of Demeter and Persephone as seen from the modern woman's perspective. Fraught with emotional honesty, this captivating collection of lyrical and narrative poems chronicles the struggles of the figurative Persephone in three parts - the abduction, descent to the underworld, and return. Townsend turns a shrewd eye to her own experiences, as well as to the lives of other women, to offer an unflinching yet deeply compassionate exploration of such themes as girlhood and the vulnerability of the motherless; the demons of depression, addiction, and abuse; as well as passion, aging, and celebration of the natural world. Although the poems traverse dark emotional territory at times, the picture that emerges ultimately is one of reyelation and wisdom. \"\"Persephone in America\"\" is above all a journey of the soul, following the narrator as she explores what it means to be a woman in America, at times descending into darkness, only to emerge into redemption and realize 'time's sweet and invincible secret - that everything repeats - and we watch it.' Townsend's candid portrait of female loss and discovery seeks to illuminate the truths inherent in myth, and the awakenings that hide in our darkest moments. \"\"Finding Hell on the Map\"\" - It is easy to imagine hell in the wrong place, human to want to make it something real or geographical, a landscape we can point to on a map. The San Andreas Fault, the Luray Caverns, or that spot in the Hudson River the Dutch called World's End, because the currents there pull you down in every direction. Who wouldn't want to place it outside the body? Who wouldn't flinch.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50149059952913,"sku":"GOR013870983","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50363393343761,"sku":"CIN0809328968G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50366716150033,"sku":"CIN0809328968VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0809328968.jpg?v=1763474677"},{"product_id":"green-hour-book-alison-townsend-9780299334604","title":"The Green Hour","description":"When Alison Townsend purchased her first house, in south-central Wisconsin, she put down roots where she never imagined settling. To understand how she came to live in the Midwest, she takes a journey through personal landscapes, considering the impact of geography at pivotal moments in her life, vividly illuminating the role of mourning, homesickness, and relocations.  With sparkling, lyrical prose, The Green Hour undulates effortlessly through time like a red-winged blackbird. Inspired by five beloved settings—eastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, California, western Oregon, and the spot atop the Wisconsin hill where she now resides—Townsend considers the role that place plays in shaping the self. She reveals the ways that a fresh perspective or new experience in any environment can incite wonder, build unexpected connections, and provide solace or salvation.  Mesmerizingly attentive to nature—its beauty, its fragility, and its redeeming powers—she asks what it means to live in community with wilderness and to allow our identities to be shaped by our interactions with it: our story as its story.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347876778257,"sku":"CIN0299334600G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000695947537,"sku":"NIN9780299334604","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52327131971857,"sku":"NLS9780299334604","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0299334600.jpg?v=1763223539"},{"product_id":"persistence-of-rivers-book-alison-townsend-9781941681831","title":"The Persistence of Rivers","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlison Townsend shapes the memories within this book like the meditative and meandering rivers that inspired them. \u003cem\u003eThe Persistence of Rivers\u003c\/em\u003e evokes the naturalism of Thoreau and Dillard, yet Townsend's prose remains masterfully singular in its subject, lyricism, and poignancy. Spanning decades from the 1950s to the present, the book considers the impact of rivers at pivotal moments in Townsend's life, examining issues of landscape, loss, memory, healing, and the search for home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51055606202641,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51055608693009,"sku":"NIN9781941681831","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52120090738961,"sku":"NLS9781941681831","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1941681832.jpg?v=1751219725"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-alison-townsend.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}