In this delightful memoir, the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air reflects on her life as a professional reader. Maureen Corrigan takes us from her unpretentious girlhood in working-class Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, always with a book at her side. Along the way, she reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen Corrigan, who will present at our 67th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference, June 2-4, 2022, is the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, the Critic-in-Residence at Georgetown University, and winner of the Edgar Award for Criticism. She is the author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures (Little, Brown, 2015).

Join us on Friday, June 3 for Corrigan's talk, "All the Glittering Prizes," 7:00-8:30 p.m. and followed by a book signing in the National Willa Cather Center Bookstore!

Paperback | 978037570936 | $15.95 | Published by Vintage: January 2, 2007 | 240 Pages

Praise

“Irresistible. . . . Corrigan has some wonderful insights. . . . Book lovers will be busy checking her lists, searching for new ‘leave me alone’ titles.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Corrigan’s eclectic taste and skillful assessment of new writers as well as those long dead are particularly astute.” —USA Today

“[A] brilliant and funny narrative of [Corrigan’s] own reading life, which ranges from her Catholic childhood to graduate school and a career as a professional reader. . . . Utterly original.” —Chicago Tribune

“Corrigan is erudite without being the least bit pretentious. . . . Dipping into Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading is a little like visiting that friend whose house is always full of books and who always sends you home with one you’re excited to read.”—Detroit Free-Press