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AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK NOW from GROVE PRESS

Equal parts memoir and intellectual excursion, The Whole Five Feet is the story of a modern young man who spends a year in passionate engagement with the past. By living his own life while reading the best thinkers that Western civilization has produced, he rediscovers the relevance of the great books and delivers a wise, hopeful, and immensely satisfying meditation on what they can teach us about life and death, and how to navigate both in the present tense.

 

“Life intruded rudely on Beha’s sabbatical, and he rose to the occasion by writing an unexpected narrative that deftly reconciles lofty thoughts and earthy pain. In doing so, he makes an elegant case for literature as an everyday companion no less valuable than the iPod.”
- NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Winning . . . Intensely felt” - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Disarming” - THE PORTLAND MERCURY

“Intimate, confiding, deeply moving, and yet wonderfully informative and ‘intellectual’ in the very best sense of the word.”
-JOYCE CAROL OATES

 

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