Robert Hellenga’s Followers (65)

Robert Hellenga

Born

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The United States

August 05, 1941

Died

July 18, 2020

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Robert Hellenga was an American novelist, essayist, and short story author.
His eight novels included The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, The Italian Lover, Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Confessions of Frances Godwin and Love, Death, & Rare Books. In addition to these works, he wrote a novella, Six Weeks in Verona, along with a collection of short stories in The Truth About Death and Other Stories. Hellenga also published scholarly essays and literary or travel essays in various venues, including The National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, and The Gettysburg Review.
Hellenga was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee and Three Oaks, Michigan. He Robert Hellenga was an American novelist, essayist, and short story author.
His eight novels included The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, The Italian Lover, Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Confessions of Frances Godwin and Love, Death, & Rare Books. In addition to these works, he wrote a novella, Six Weeks in Verona, along with a collection of short stories in The Truth About Death and Other Stories. Hellenga also published scholarly essays and literary or travel essays in various venues, including The National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, and The Gettysburg Review.
Hellenga was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee and Three Oaks, Michigan. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and his graduate work at the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina, and Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton and began teaching English literature at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1968. In 1973–74 he was co-director of the ACM Seminar in the Humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and in 1982–83 he directed the ACM Florence programs in Florence, Italy. He also worked and studied in Bologna, Verona, and Rome. He was distinguished writer in residence and professor emeritus at Knox College. Hellenga was married and had three daughters.
Hellenga received awards for his fiction from the Illinois Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Sixteen Pleasures received The Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction published in 1994. The Fall of a Sparrow was included in the Los Angeles Times list of the "Best Fiction of 1998" and the Publishers Weekly list of the "Best 98 Books." Snakewoman of Little Egypt, was included in The Washington Post's list of "The Best Novels of 2010" and Kirkus Reviews' list of "2010 Best Fiction: The Top 25." The audio version of Snakewoman was a 2011 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction. The Confessions of Frances Godwin received The Society of Midland Authors' Award for fiction published in 2014.
Hellenga died of neuroendocrine cancer on July 18, 2020, at his home in Galesburg, Illinois. ...more

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Robert Hellenga’s books

Average rating: 3.56 · 6,968 ratings · 1,023 reviews · 11 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Sixteen Pleasures 3.61 avg rating — 3,492 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of a Sparrow 3.66 avg rating — 1,019 ratings — published 1998 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Philosophy Made Simple 3.40 avg rating — 696 ratings — published 2006 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Snakewoman of Little Egypt 3.45 avg rating — 575 ratings — published 2010 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Italian Lover 3.36 avg rating — 359 ratings — published 2007 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Confessions of Frances Godwin 3.44 avg rating — 343 ratings — published 2014 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blues Lessons 3.55 avg rating — 233 ratings — published 2001 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Love, Death & Rare Books 3.59 avg rating — 198 ratings — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Truth About Death and Other Stories 3.35 avg rating — 51 ratings — published 2016 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of a Sparrow Reading Group Guide really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Robert Hellenga (?)

“He doesn't believe in talking too much about art, especially while you're looking at it. The pressure to appreciate is the great enemy of actual enjoyment. Most people don't know what they like because they feel obligated to like so many different things. They feel they're supposed to be overwhelmed, so instead of looking, they spend their time thinking up something to say, something intelligent, or at least clever.”
― Robert Hellenga, The Sixteen Pleasures

tags: art

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“Fussing over food was important. It gave a shape to the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner; beginning, middle, end.”
― Robert Hellenga, Philosophy Made Simple

tags: beginning, breakfast, cooking, daily-life, dinner, end, food, lunch, middle

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“All I know is that my life is filled with little pockets of silence. When I put a record on the turntable, for example, there`s a little interval-between the time the needle touches down on the record and the time the music actually starts-during which my heart refuses to beat. All I know is that between the rings of the telephone, between the touch of a button and the sound of the radio coming on, between the dimming of the lights at the cinema and the start of the film, between the lightning and the thunder, between the shout and the echo, between the lifting of a baton and the opening bars of a symphony, between the dropping of a stone and the plunk that comes back from the bottom of a well, between the ringing of the doorbell and the barking of the dogs I sometimes catch myself, involuntarily, listening for the sound of my mother`s voice, still waiting for the tape to begin.”
― Robert Hellenga The Sixteen Pleasures

tags: robert-hellenga

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Robert Hellenga’s Followers (65)

Robert Hellenga

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