Reading for My Life: Writings, 1958-2008Right up until his death in 2008, John Leonard was a lion in American letters. A passionate, erudite, and wide-ranging critic, he helped shape the landscape of modern literature. He reviewed the most celebrated writers of his age—from Kurt Vonnegut and Joan Didion to Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon. He championed Morrison’s work so ardently that she invited him to travel with her to Stockholm when she accepted her Nobel Prize. He also contributed many pieces on television, film, politics, and the media, which continue to surprise and impress with their fervor and prescience. Reading for My Life is a monumental collection of Leonard’s most significant writings—spanning five decades—from his earliest columns for the Harvard Crimson to his final essays for The New York Review of Books. Here are Leonard’s best writings—many never before published in book form—on the cultural touchstones of a generation, each piece a testament to his sharp wit, fierce intelligence, and lasting love of the arts. Definitive reviews of Doris Lessing, Vladimir Nabokov, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tom Wolfe, Don DeLillo, Milan Kundera, and Philip Roth, among others, display his passion and nearly encyclopedic knowledge of literature in the second half of the twentieth century. His essay on Ed Sullivan and the evolution of television remains a classic. Throughout Leonard’s reviews and essays is a dedicated political spirit, pleading for social justice, advocating for the women’s movement, and forever calling attention to writers whose work challenged and excited him. With an introduction by E. L. Doctorow and remembrances by Leonard’s friends, family, and colleagues, including Gloria Steinem and Victor Navasky, Reading for My Life stands as a landmark collection from one of America’s most beloved and influential critics. |
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LibraryThing Review
Avis d'utilisateur - jphamilton - LibraryThingThis is an excellent collection of essays and reviews. Sure, I had seen him on CBS Sunday Morning and had read his work seemingly everywhere for years, but once you sit down and read a collection of his gems, one realizes just how good he was. Consulter l'avis complet
READING FOR MY LIFE: Writings, 1958-2008
Avis d'utilisateur - Jane Doe - KirkusA selection of reviews and essays from the celebrated literary critic, followed by a sort of festschrift with contributors ranging from family members to noted authors (Toni Morrison, Mary Gordon and ... Consulter l'avis complet
Table des matières
Morrisons Paradise Lost | |
Ralph Ellison Sort Of Plus Hemingway and Salinger | |
Why Socialism Never Happened Here | |
Maureen Howards Big as Life | |
Bill Ayerss Fugitive Days | |
Blowing His Nose in the Wind | |
Networks of Terror | |
Richard Powerss The Time of Our Singing | |
Peggy Noonans What I Saw at the Revolution | |
No Turning Back Barbara Ferraro and Patricia Hussey with Jane OReilly | |
Philip Roths Patrimony | |
Milan Kunderas Immortality | |
Norman Mailers Harlots Ghost | |
Ed Sullivan Died for Our Sins | |
Dear Bill on the Occasion of His Inauguration | |
Meeting David Grossman | |
Eduardo Galeano Walks Some Words | |
Amos Oz in the Desert | |
Family Values Like the House of Atreus | |
When Studs Listens Everyone Else Talks | |
Amazing Grace | |
Jacobo Timerman Renaissance Troublemaker | |
Jonathan Lethems Men and Cartoons The Disappointment Artist and The Fortress of Solitude | |
Citizen Doctorow | |
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band on Václav Havel | |
The Last Innocent White Man | |
Michael Chabons The Yiddish Policemans Union | |
Joan Didions The Year of Magical Thinking | |
Writing for His Life | |
Andrew Leonard | |
Amy Leonard | |
Jen Nessel | |
Jane OReilly writer | |
Victor Navasky The Nation | |
Gloria Steinem feminist | |
Esther Broner writer | |
Jill Krementz photographer | |
Eden Ross Lipson The New York Times Book Review | |
Letty Cottin Pogrebin writer | |
Celia McGee critic | |
Maureen Corrigan critic | |
Gene Seymour New York Newsday | |
Ramon Parkins CBS Sunday Morning | |
Jennifer Szalai Harpers | |
Mary Gordon writer | |
Toni Morrison writer | |
Maureen Howard writer | |
Eduardo Galeano on learning of Johns death | |
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