Reading for My Life: Writings, 1958-2008

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Penguin, 15 mars 2012 - 400 pages
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Right 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 - LibraryThing

This 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 - Kirkus

A 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

Nabokovs Ada
Gabriel García Márquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude
Arthur Koestlers Arrow in the Blue and The Invisible Writing
Supergirl Meets the Sociologist
Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior
Edward Saids Orientalism
Gay Taleses Thy Neighbors Wife
Robert Stones A Flag for Sunrise
Tom Wolfes The Bonfire of the Vanities and Jim Sleepers In Search of New York
Don DeLillos Libra
AIDS Is Everywhere
On the Beat at Ms
Nan Robertsons GettingBetter
Salman Rushdies The Satanic Verses
Thomas Pynchons Vineland
Bad Boys and Fairy Tales
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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À propos de l'auteur (2012)

John Leonard (1939-2008) was a reviewer or contributing editor for practically every national print outlet, including The Nation, the New York Review of Books, Harper's, Vanity Fair, Salon, and New York, and the daily book reviewer for the New York Times. He also appeared regularly on NPR's Fresh Air and CBS's Sunday Morning. Leonard wrote four novels and served for four years as the executive editor of the New York Times Book Review. In 2006 he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle's prestigious Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.
E. L. Doctorow’s novels include The March, City of God, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, and Billy Bathgate. Among his honors are the National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle awards, two PEN/Faulkner awards, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Humanities Medal. E. L. Doctorow lives in New York.

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