Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books Author: Wendy Lesser | Language: English | ISBN:
B00E71900E | Format: PDF
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books Description
“Wendy Lesser’s extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America’s most significant cultural critics,” writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Why I Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing one of the most distinguished literary magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe her love of literature. As Lesser writes in her prologue, “Reading can result in boredom or transcendence, rage or enthusiasm, depression or hilarity, empathy or contempt, depending on who you are and what the book is and how your life is shaping up at the moment you encounter it.”
Here the reader will discover a definition of literature that is as broad as it is broad-minded. In addition to novels and stories, Lesser explores plays, poems, and essays along with mysteries, science fiction, and memoirs. As she examines these works from such perspectives as “Character and Plot,” “Novelty,” “Grandeur and Intimacy,” and “Authority,” Why I Read sparks an overwhelming desire to put aside quotidian tasks in favor of reading. Lesser’s passion for this pursuit resonates on every page, whether she is discussing the book as a physical object or a particular work’s influence. “Reading literature is a way of reaching back to something bigger and older and different,” she writes. “It can give you the feeling that you belong to the past as well as the present, and it can help you realize that your present will someday be someone else’s past. This may be disheartening, but it can also be strangely consoling at times.”
A book in the spirit of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Elizabeth Hardwick’s A View of My Own, Why I Read is iconoclastic, conversational, andfull of insight. It will delight those who are alreadyavid readers as well as neophytes in search of sheerliterary fun.
- File Size: 410 KB
- Print Length: 239 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0374289204
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 7, 2014)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00E71900E
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,894 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #76
in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Books & Reading > General
- #76
in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Books & Reading > General
If you've been a reader most of your life, this is a great book. If you have never been much of a reader, I don't know that you will be convinced to become one. This book preaches to the choir and is a festival... a love in....
Wendy Lesser is a lover and she knows whereof she speaks....
this is a book that truly celebrates reading and books read... and the contribution that reading can make to the wisdom, texture, and richness of a lifelong dedication...
You want the book never to end...
By oceanshaman
Like all great writing, this book compels the writer to enter the mind of the author. The experience in this book is luxurious in its exact and literate explorations of the author's favorite books. I am always struck with awe when a piece of writing captures my vague or ill formed thoughts into cogent and startling insight. Sharing a compulsion is deep pleasure that is multiplied by glimpses into unknown terrain. This book contains both and can take its place as a great work with literature.
By Amelia Gremelspacher
TOP 500 REVIEWER
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