{"product_id":"city-of-toys-essays-paperback","title":"City of Toys: Essays - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLesley Jenike\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA genre-defying debut that distills memoir, cultural criticism, and poetic inquiry into a kaleidoscopic meditation on motherhood, memory, art, and transformation.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eComposed in a postpartum blur and finessed as Lesley Jenike settled into established motherhood, the essays in \u003ci\u003eCity of Toys\u003c\/i\u003e careen from exteriority to interiority, from high to low culture, and from the manufactured to the natural world, all on a quest to understand creativity, mothering, and how art drives and shapes us. With madcap acuity, Jenike casts her eye on cultural flash points from Harambe the gorilla to Steven Spielberg and Ada Lovelace to Yayoi Kusama. At times she doubles back to her own experience as a young performer, and at others hurtles into her children's possible futures, when AI starts to dream, imagination is commodified, and the polar bear drowns. All the while she wonders what we owe our children and what we believe (rightly or wrongly) our children owe us. Fascinated by creativity and peopled by dolls, automatons, robots, ghosts, puppets, and historical figures, this exuberant and devastating debut asks, What world are we building, and what are we tearing down?\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesley Jenike has published poetry, creative nonfiction, and criticism in \u003ci\u003eImage, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eWest Branch, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Kenyon Review, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ePloughshares, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eColorado Review, \u003c\/i\u003e and elsewhere. She teaches writing, literature, and philosophy at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio, where she lives with her husband and two children.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 280\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.63 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 09, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48328090517752,"sku":"9780814259757","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0698\/5629\/7208\/files\/tS_5aW9u9s9780814259757.webp?v=1778010528","url":"https:\/\/barneysbooksellers.com\/products\/city-of-toys-essays-paperback","provider":"Barney's Book Sellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}