307 ratings | 4 reviews | avg rating:4.79

Alena Graedon’s Followers (105)

Alena’s Bookshelves

to-read (5)
currently-reading (0)
read (307)

Alena’s Friends (68)

Beth Swanson

373 books | 84 friends

John Madera

2,104 books | 1,979 friends

Ray Kuili

33 books | 1,468 friends

Joel Ramirez

276 books | 520 friends

Andrea

776 books | 32 friends

C.J. Heigelmann

91 books | 2,190 friends

April

979 books | 34 friends

Erica Ravenclaw

995 books | 440 friends

More friends…

Alena Graedon

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.alenagraedon.com/

Genre

Fiction, Science Fiction, Contemporary

Member Since

August 2007

edit data

Alena Graedon's first novel, The Word Exchange, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and Paperback Row pick, and selected as a best novel of 2014 by Kirkus. It has been translated into eight languages. Graedon’s nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Book Review, newyorker.com, The Believer magazine, and Guernica, among other places, and her short fiction has appeared in VICE magazine.

Graedon has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Ucross Foundation, The Jentel Artist Residency, VCCA, and The Vermont Studio Center. A native of North Carolina, Graedon is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's MFA program. She has taught at Columbia and Monmouth universities, and she liv ...more

Combine Editions
Alena Graedon’s books

Average rating: 3.35 · 4,272 ratings · 1,015 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

The Word Exchange

3.35 avg rating — 4,272 ratings — published 2014

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

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

rss
Alena’s Recent Updates

Alena is now friends with J.
Feb 16, 2024 08:20PM · like

More of Alena's books…

Quotes by Alena Graedon (?)

“Why do you think people stopped reading? We read to connect with other minds. But why read when you're busy writing, describing the fine-grained flotsam of your own life. Compulsively recording every morsel you eat, that you're cold, or, I don't know, heartbroken by a football game. An endless stream flowing to an audience of everyone and no one.”
― Alena Graedon, The Word Exchange

tags: compulsive, connect, reading, writing

12 likes

“Words, I've come to learn, are pulleys through time. Portals into other minds. Without words, what remains? Indecipherable customs. Strange rites. Blighted hearts. Without words, we're history's orphans. Our lives and thoughts erased”
― Alena Graedon

7 likes

“Words, then, are born of worlds. But they also take us places we can’t go: Constantinople and Mars, Valhalla, the Planet of the Apes. Language comes from what we’ve seen, touched, loved, lost. And it uses knowable things to give us glimpses of what’s not. The Word, after all, is God.”
― Alena Graedon, The Word Exchange

tags: god, words, worlds

5 likes

See all Alena Graedon's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Flights of Fantasy: What are you reading in April 2014?	201	84	May 01, 2014 07:14AM
The Seasonal Read...: Completed Tasks: Do Not Delete Posts	2625	600	Aug 31, 2014 08:59PM
Reading with Style: SU 2014 RwS Completed Tasks - Summer 2014	1189	146	Aug 31, 2014 09:03PM
Sisterhood of the...: What are you reading today? 2014	325	58	Dec 31, 2014 07:52PM