Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia PlathRed Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
Score Modern
What it's about
Heather Clark's biography of Sylvia Plath tells her life in full, using material never available before: her brilliant, ambitious youth, her years at Smith College and her breakdown, her Fulbright year at Cambridge and marriage to the poet Ted Hughes, motherhood, his affair, and the extraordinary burst of poems she wrote in her last months, before her suicide at thirty.
Why it's worth reading
It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It insists on Plath as an artist, not just a tragedy.
You'll love it if you liked
Birthday Letters
James Joyce
SontagGood to know
It's over a thousand pages. It deals with depression and suicide.
By the numbers
- Readers100 out of 100 · counts 42%
- Critics44 out of 100 · counts 34% (its stronger lane)
- Bestseller4 out of 100 · counts 14%
- Buzz19 out of 100 · counts 10%
Critics and Bestseller are two ways to earn a place: a book's stronger one counts more. Buzz rewards recent bestseller weeks and prizes, so older books start at zero. The parts combine into the Must-Read Score, shown on a scale where the best book we found scores 99 and the last book to make the ranking scores 50.
Where it ranks
- #75 of the 290 memoirs and biographies we rank
- #184 of the 1,573 modern books we rank
- #368 of the 2,816 books we rank
Why it made the list
Reads as
True story
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Quick answers
Is Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath worth reading?
Yes. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It ranks #368 of the 2,816 books in our ranking, with a Must-Read Score of 80.4 (the best book we found scores 99).
What is Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath about?
Heather Clark's biography of Sylvia Plath tells her life in full, using material never available before: her brilliant, ambitious youth, her years at Smith College and her breakdown, her Fulbright year at Cambridge and marriage to the poet Ted Hughes, motherhood, his affair, and the extraordinary burst of poems she wrote in her last months, before her suicide at thirty.
How long does it take to read Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath?
About 29 hours (1152 pages), or about 8 weeks at 30 minutes a day.
What should I read after Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath?
If you liked it, try Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, James Joyce by Richard Ellmann or Sontag by Benjamin Moser.