True stories : and other essays / Francis Spufford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spufford, Francis, 1964- author.

Standardized Title:

Essays. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Essays.

LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays.

Local Subjects:

LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays.

Genre:

Essays.

Physical Description:

xviii, 336 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2017]

Summary:

"Francis Spufford's welcome first volume of collected essays gathers an array of his compelling writings from the 1990s to the present. He makes use of a variety of encounters with particular places, writers, or books to address deeper questions relating to the complicated relationship between story-telling and truth-telling. How must a nonfiction writer imagine facts, vivifying them to bring them to life? How must a novelist create a dependable world of story, within which facts are, in fact, imaginary? And how does a religious faith felt strongly to be true, but not provably so, draw on both kinds of writerly imagination? Ranging freely across topics as diverse as the medieval legends of Cockaigne, the Christian apologetics of C. S. Lewis, and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, Spufford provides both fresh observations and thought-provoking insights. No less does he inspire an irresistible urge to turn the page and read on"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cold. Winter night

Ice

Worst journey

Shackleton

Read my toes

Borealism

Huntford's Nansen, Huntford's Scott

The uses of Antarctica

Red. Siberian journal

The Soviet moment

Plenty

Responsible fiction, irresponsible fact

Idols of the marketplace

Unicorn husbandry

Sacred. Dear atheists

Contra Dawkins

Puritans

Who is God? An answer for children

C.S. Lewis as apologist

What can science fiction tell us about God?

Uneasy in Iran

Wild theism

The past as zombie hazard, and consolation

Three ways of writing faith

Unapologetically yours (1)

Unapologetically yours (2)

Technical. Difference engine

Boffins

Printed. Half in praise

Kipling's jungle

Robinson's Mars

The amazing Terence

You could read forever

This grand cause of terror

Bats of some kind

In memoriam, Iain M. Banks

The dyer's elbow.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780300230055

0300230052

OCLC:

982652298