The Shapeless Unease by Samantha Harvey
Easily one of the truest and best books Ive read about what its like to be alive now, in this country Max Porter Sleep. Then you think about it all the time, and the less you have the more you think about it. For Samantha Harvey, extreme sleep deprivation resulted in a raw clarity about life itself.
[A] remarkable book… [The Shapeless Unease is] an extraordinary journey, but it’s also mesmerisingHarvey writes with hypnotic power and poetic precision about – well, about everything: grief, pain, memory, family, the night sky, a lake at sunset, what it means to dream and what it means to suffer and survive. -- Christina Patterson * Mail on Sunday *
A delight to read… suffused with the sense of a timeless fable… ineffably rewarding. -- Colin Grant * Observer *
Urgent and wild, but also dazzling in its precision. This is what it must be like to try to keep hold of a brilliant mind that is threatening to unspool… a dark, seductive book about fear and madness and their allure… Reading The Shapeless Unease can feel not unlike dipping into strange, unchartered waters: it is by turns bracing and soothing, with a dark undertow and glimmers of light at the surface, and one emerges from it with an altered perspective, a sense of time having slowed down. -- Sophie McBain * New Statesman *
Samantha Harvey's dazzling, dizzying trip through the nightmare world of the sleepless...[is a] wondrous little book... a treasure trove of material… The Shapeless Unease is also one of the best books you will find about swimming. And its wonders. -- Roger Alton * Daily Mail *
Intricately intriguing… astonishing… [The Shapeless Unease is] a particular joy. It moves between topics with ease, and yet at its heart it is an emotional book… I haven’t read a book which is quite as clear about being a writer. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *
An engrossing vision of how our lives are knit together - day to day, night to night, and thought to thought. * New Yorker *
The Shapeless Unease is a merciless and self-mocking memoir in which Harvey shows us the insomniac’s universe of “edgeless expanse”… Writing should take us to places we wouldn’t otherwise go, and Harvey invites us to open our eyes in the darkness and feel the tiger in the room. -- Frances Wilson * Daily Telegraph *
The Shapeless Unease contains many beautiful and poignant passages about the human will to keep on living… [and] Harvey’s imagery casts a spell. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * The Times *
What a spectacularly good book. It is so controlled and yet so WILD. One of the best books I’ve read about writing. One of the best books I’ve read about swimming. One of the best books I’ve read about mourning. And easily one of the truest and best books I’ve read about what it’s like to be alive now, in this country. * Max Porter *
How can a book about a sensual deprivation be so sensuous and so full? Gritty with particulars, concrete and substantial even when it is most philosophical and far-reaching. I loved reading it before I fell asleep every night – it seemed to give my sleep resonance and poetry. What a beautiful book. * Tessa Hadley *
A delight to read… suffused with the sense of a timeless fable… ineffably rewarding. -- Colin Grant * Observer *
Urgent and wild, but also dazzling in its precision. This is what it must be like to try to keep hold of a brilliant mind that is threatening to unspool… a dark, seductive book about fear and madness and their allure… Reading The Shapeless Unease can feel not unlike dipping into strange, unchartered waters: it is by turns bracing and soothing, with a dark undertow and glimmers of light at the surface, and one emerges from it with an altered perspective, a sense of time having slowed down. -- Sophie McBain * New Statesman *
Samantha Harvey's dazzling, dizzying trip through the nightmare world of the sleepless...[is a] wondrous little book... a treasure trove of material… The Shapeless Unease is also one of the best books you will find about swimming. And its wonders. -- Roger Alton * Daily Mail *
Intricately intriguing… astonishing… [The Shapeless Unease is] a particular joy. It moves between topics with ease, and yet at its heart it is an emotional book… I haven’t read a book which is quite as clear about being a writer. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *
An engrossing vision of how our lives are knit together - day to day, night to night, and thought to thought. * New Yorker *
The Shapeless Unease is a merciless and self-mocking memoir in which Harvey shows us the insomniac’s universe of “edgeless expanse”… Writing should take us to places we wouldn’t otherwise go, and Harvey invites us to open our eyes in the darkness and feel the tiger in the room. -- Frances Wilson * Daily Telegraph *
The Shapeless Unease contains many beautiful and poignant passages about the human will to keep on living… [and] Harvey’s imagery casts a spell. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * The Times *
What a spectacularly good book. It is so controlled and yet so WILD. One of the best books I’ve read about writing. One of the best books I’ve read about swimming. One of the best books I’ve read about mourning. And easily one of the truest and best books I’ve read about what it’s like to be alive now, in this country. * Max Porter *
How can a book about a sensual deprivation be so sensuous and so full? Gritty with particulars, concrete and substantial even when it is most philosophical and far-reaching. I loved reading it before I fell asleep every night – it seemed to give my sleep resonance and poetry. What a beautiful book. * Tessa Hadley *
Samantha Harvey is the author of The Wilderness, All Is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind. She appeared on the longlists for the Bailey’s Prize and the Man Booker, and the shortlists of the James Tait Black Award, the Orange Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter Scott Prize. The Wilderness won the Betty Trask Award in 2009. She is a tutor on the MA course in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781787332027 |
| ISBN 10 | 1787332020 |
| Title | The Shapeless Unease |
| Author | Samantha Harvey |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2020-01-09 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |