The Cost of Living
Complex
Profound
Honest

The Cost of Living A Working Autobiography

Deborah Levy2018
A searching examination of all the dimensions of love, marriage, mourning, and kinship from two-time Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy. To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of The Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children has been the priority is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted woman. The Cost of Living explores the subtle erasure of women's names, spaces, and stories in the modern everyday. In this “living autobiography” infused with warmth and humor, Deborah Levy critiques the roles that society assigns to us, and reflects on the politics of breaking with the usual gendered rituals. What does it cost a woman to unsettle old boundaries and collapse the social hierarchies that make her a minor character in a world not arranged to her advantage? Levy draws on her own experience of attempting to live with pleasure, value, and meaning--the making of a new kind of family home, the challenges of her mother's death--and those of women she meets in everyday life, from a young female traveler reading in a bar who suppresses her own words while she deflects an older man's advances, to a particularly brilliant student, to a kindly and ruthless octogenarian bookseller who offers the author a place to write at a difficult time in her life. The Cost of Living is urgent, essential reading, a crystalline manifesto for turbulent times.
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4.5 stars
Nov 17, 2024
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May 19, 2024
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4 stars
Jan 12, 2024
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Molly Bridge@mollyb
4 stars
Oct 2, 2023
Deep
Unique
Honest
Complex
Profound
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4 stars
Jan 5, 2023
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5 stars
May 23, 2022
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5 stars
Jan 3, 2022
Touching
Emotional
Intelligent
Contemplative
Unforgettable
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5 stars
Jul 1, 2024
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khaoula@snrio0
3.5 stars
Mar 23, 2024
Profound
Remarkable
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Totoread@shijin_krishnan
3.5 stars
Jan 31, 2024
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4 stars
Jan 28, 2024
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5 stars
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5 stars
Dec 26, 2023
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Marián Blaha@blahamari
5 stars
Dec 8, 2023
Unique
Honest
Charming
Original
Refreshing
Fascinating
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Elias Seidenberg@eliasseidenberg
3.5 stars
Jun 22, 2023
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MK@easyfriday
4.5 stars
May 18, 2023
Complex
Meaningful
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2.5 stars
Sep 9, 2022
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3 stars
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3.5 stars
Mar 25, 2022
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3.5 stars
Jan 2, 2022
Bold
Meaningful
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4 stars
Oct 18, 2021
Honest
Contemplative

Highlights

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aileen@aintimating
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Marián Blaha@blahamari
Page 108
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Marián Blaha@blahamari
Page 34
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Marián Blaha@blahamari
Page 25
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Elias Seidenberg@eliasseidenberg
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Elias Seidenberg@eliasseidenberg