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Memory Chalet

Tony Judt

2010226 pagesabout 3–5 hours
2010
first published
  • 2010William HeinemannISBN 9780434020966
  • 2010Penguin Press · 226 pages · ENGISBN 9781594202896
  • 2011Penguin BooksISBN 9780143119975
  • 2011Penguin Random House · 240 pages · ENGISBN 9780099555599
  • 2014Penguin Random House · ENGISBN 9781473522503

"'The Memory Chalet' is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt's prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the divergent sex politics of Europe, before concluding that his generation 'was a revolutionary generation, but missed the revolution.' A series of road trips across America lead not just to an appreciation of American history, but to an eventual acquisition of citizenship. Foods and trains and long-lost smells all compete for Judt's attention; but for us, he has forged his reflections into an elegant arc of analysis. All as simply and beautifully arranged as a Swiss chalet-a reassuring refuge deep in the mountains of memory."--Dust jacket flap.

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