An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

Q: Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

No, you don’t have to buy the ebook to participate, but we do recommend it to get the most out of your club. There are several premium social reading features that are only available when you buy the ebook, like annotations, reactions, comment threads, resources, discussion prompts, and more, all embedded right in the text. It’s a unique and immersive way to read.

Q: Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

It’s annoying, we know. App store rules prevent us from selling directly in the app, so for now you can only purchase ebooks on our website. Don’t worry: when you purchase an ebook on the web, it’s automatically added to your bookshelf in the app.

Q: How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Kindle is a straightforward e-reader; Fable is an interactive e-reader that includes social features inside the ebooks. When you read an ebook on Fable, you can see and react to the text with others in real time. Start a discussion, share highlights and quotes, add emoji reactions—all of it lives right inside the book. It’s hard to explain and easy to see, so we recommend reading the free sample in one of our most active clubs to get a feel for it.

Q: Do you sell physical books too?

We do not sell physical books at this time. Wish we did? Let us know why here!

Q: Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

Most of our clubs are completely free to join. The only exceptions are clubs marked as “Premium” or “Career Development,” which do require a fee. You can find out more on each club’s detail page.

Q: How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

The first step is to download the Fable app. From there, you’ll be able to create your own private or public book club and invite others to read with you. Once your club is created, click on the plus sign under “Currently reading” and search for this book to add it to your club.

By Clarice Lispector & Stefan Tobler &

Why read on Fable?

Discover social reading

Chat inside the ebook with emojis, comments and more

Annotate with notes, tabs, and highlights

Share or keep your notes private with our annotation features

Support the World Literacy Foundation

We donate 20% of every book sale to help children learn to read

Publisher Description

Now in paperback, a romantic love story by the great Brazilian writer

Lóri, a primary school teacher, is isolated and nervous, comfortable with children but unable to connect to adults. When she meets Ulisses, a professor of philosophy, an opportunity opens: a chance to escape the shipwreck of introspection and embrace the love, including the sexual love, of a man. Her attempt, as Sheila Heti writes in her afterword, is not only “to love and to be loved,” but also “to be worthy of life itself.”

Published in 1968, An Apprenticeship is Clarice Lispector’s attempt to reinvent herself following the exhausting effort of her metaphysical masterpiece The Passion According to G. H. Here, in this unconventional love story, she explores the ways in which people try to bridge the gaps between them, and the result, unusual in her work, surprised many readers and became a bestseller.

Some appreciated its accessibility; others denounced it as sexist or superficial. To both admirers and critics, the olympian Clarice gave a typically elliptical answer: “I humanized myself,” she said. “The book reflects that.”

405 Reviews

4.0

Alice

Created about 11 hours ago

Sal

Created 1 day ago

yna

Created 2 days ago

“love isn’t just about feeling—it’s about letting yourself feel it fully. that’s the hardest part, and that’s exactly what this book captures so well. lispector’s writing is sharp, intimate, and unfiltered. she takes the most ordinary moments, especially in a woman’s life and makes them feel profound. there’s deep insight, raw uncertainty, and an almost instinctive understanding of human emotions, yet she never pretends to have all the answers. i find this book so compelling because of how it explores love—not just romance, but the act of allowing myself to be loved. it doesn’t try to give clear answers, just this quiet unraveling of emotions, uncertainty, and self-discovery. the hesitation, the doubt, the raw honesty, it all feels so real. it’s not just about relationships with others, but about what it means to be human. to trust, to accept, to believe that love is something we are meant to feel.”

Kalyani Krishna

Created 3 days ago

Memorable Multilayered Original Strong relationships Unforgettable protagonist Addictive Uneven pacing Well-structured Setting fits the story Beautifully-written

Dubhe Kyle Oraa

Created 5 days ago

About Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called “astounding” (Rachel Kushner), “a penetrating genius” (Donna Seaman, Booklist), and “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” (Orhan Pamuk).

Other books by Clarice Lispector

Covert Joy: Selected Stories

Clarice Lispector & Rachel Kushner

$20.98

The Apple in the Dark

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser

$17.48

Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas

Clarice Lispector & Margaret Jull Costa

$26.23

The Hour of the Star: 100th Anniversary Edition

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$13.95

The Chandelier

Clarice Lispector & Magdalena Edwards &

$16.95

The Besieged City

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$16.95

Complete Stories

Clarice Lispector & Katrina Dodson &

$19.23

A Breath of Life

Clarice Lispector & Johnny Lorenz &

$15.95

The Passion According to G.H.

Clarice Lispector & Caetano Veloso &

$15.95

Água Viva

Clarice Lispector & Stefan Tobler &

$14.95

Near to the Wild Heart

Clarice Lispector & Alison Entrekin &

$15.95

The Hour of the Star (Second Edition)

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$12.95

Selected Cronicas

Clarice Lispector & Giovanni Pontiero

$16.95

The Foreign Legion

Clarice Lispector & Giovanni Pontiero

$16.95

Stefan Tobler

Born in Belém, Brazil, Stefan Tobler is the publisher of And Other Stories and, whenever time permits, a translator from Portuguese and German. His translation of Arno Geiger’s The Old King in His Exile was shortlisted for both the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and Schlegel-Tieck Prize, and his other translations include the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize-shortlisted Água Viva by Clarice Lispector and the Man Booker International Prize finalist A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar.

Other books by Stefan Tobler

Orthodox Liturgy and Anti-Judaism

Berthold Schwarz & Alexandru Ioniță &

$61.95

A Cup of Rage

Raduan Nassar & Stefan Tobler

$11.95

Água Viva

Clarice Lispector & Stefan Tobler &

$14.95

Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including How Should a Person Be?, which New York Magazine deemed one of the “New Classics of the 21st century." She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a top book of 2018. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

Other books by Sheila Heti

If You're a Girl, revised and expanded edition

Ann Rower & Sheila Heti

Alphabetical Diaries

Pure Colour

Germs

Richard Wollheim & Sheila Heti

$11.99

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018

Motherhood

Trans

Juliet Jacques & Sheila Heti

$9.99

How Should a Person Be?

Sheila Heti

$12.99

The Chairs Are Where the People Go

Misha Glouberman & Sheila Heti

$11.99

Ticknor

Sheila Heti

$11.99

Benjamin Moser

General editor of the new translations of Clarice Lispector’s complete works at New Directions, BENJAMIN MOSER is the author of Why This World: The Biography of Clarice Lispector, and Sontag: Her Life and Work, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. His new book, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters, will be published in October.