When I Was a Child I Read Books

Ever since the 1981 publication of her stunning debut, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist (her second novel, Gilead, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize) but also a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam��n which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism��s respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as �� useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit.��In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.

In ��usterity as Ideology,��she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challengin. In ��pen Thy Hand Wide��she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in ��hen I Was a Child,��one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.