"Storytelling and imagination sit as anchor in this fascinating conversation about self, the world around us, and our future."
An intriguing and positively fascinating part memoir, part conversation, part examination of the power of storytelling and imagination. Author Jeanette Winterson takes the beauty of One Thousand and One Nights and journeys through her memory, her thoughts, and the story itself. She has a sparkling eloquence, with the ability to take you by the hand and bring you with her in the conversation. I found myself fascinated, as my thoughts were thoroughly provoked and I started to ponder my take on not only the world but myself. This has been chosen as a Liz Pick of the Month due to its ability to encourage contemplation. Compelling, thoughtful, and questioning, One Aladdin Two Lamps is a beautifully provocative book.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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I can change the story because I am the story.
With her execution looming, a woman is fighting for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights to reveal new questions and answers we are still thinking about today. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter whether you are honest? What makes us happy?
In her guise as Aladdin - the orphan who changes his world - Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know and look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realised through the power of books that she could read herself as fiction as well as a fact.
Weaving together fiction, magic and memoir, this remarkable book is a tribute to the age-old tradition of storytelling and a radical step into the future - an invitation to look more closely at our own stories, and to imagine the world anew.
One Aladdin Two Lamps features in the following genres: Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month, Recommendations, Biographies & Autobiographies, History, Literary essays, Fairy and Folk tales / Fairy tale retellings, Folklore studies / Study of myth (mythology), Fairy and Folk tales / Fairy tale retellings, Literary essays
One Aladdin Two Lamps is available in Paperback, Hardback
One Aladdin Two Lamps was written by Jeanette Winterson and published by Jonathan Cape an imprint of Vintage Publishing
One Aladdin Two Lamps has 240 pages
£17.09
