My Blue Sky Trades Times Books May 2002 isbn: 0670031097 $24.95 buy

Sven Birkerts, October 1

Tuesday, 6pm
Sackler Museum
485 Broadway, Cambridge
tickets available in store

"Essayist and critic Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies) here offers a splendidly crafted set of essays interweaving his youth as the son of immigrant parents during the Sixties with tales of his ancestors in Latvia. Born in 1951, Birkerts grew up in suburban Detroit and looked to books as a means of self-identification. He describes his struggles with his traditionalist parents as he attempted to submerge his Latvian heritage in American culture, his adventures in the counterculture, and the gradual process by which he came to peace with himself and discovered his gifts as a writer and literary critic. Those gifts are evident here, as Birkerts takes us on a journey at once deeply reflective of American culture and touchingly his own." -- Library Journal