Readings/writings

Book excerpt: Reading is a dance on the beaches of the mind, writes Greg Dening. His reading-dances are about the pain of cross-cultural encounters, of loomings beyond the horizons of discipline, gender and race, of the pleasures of a hundred texts. In Readings/Writings his aim is to cultivate our imaginations so that we might see further, understand more deeply and hear more acutely. This book opens with Dening's extraordinary piece, 'Memorial', a deeply moving reading of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Dening's profound yet lucid reflections on the meanings contained in this stark, simple memorial set the tone for the book.