Books like Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso
In Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso turns a 25‑year archive of 800,000 words into an intimate exploration of time and memory. She describes how her obsessive habit of recording each day was driven by a fear of forgetting, turning the diary into a spiritual practice.
After becoming pregnant and welcoming a child, those “Copernican events” shifted her relationship with documentation, sparking moments of amnesia and a new perspective on the fleeting nature of moments. The book weaves this personal shift into a broader meditation on mortality and the struggle to find clarity amid the ever‑present flow of time, contrasting her earlier volubility with a sparse, contemplative style.
First publish date: 2015
Genre: Memoir/Personal Memoir
Authors: Sarah Manguso
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