About this item
"An exhilarating volume that will ratchet up the joy for all reading groups "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 little magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe a life lived in and through literature. As Lesser writes in her foreword, "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.
About the Author
Wendy Lesser was born in 1952 in California, where she grew up. She attended Harvard University, Cambridge University, and UC Berkeley, earning a PhD in English from Berkeley in 1982. Though she has taught on occasion (at UC Santa Cruz, Princeton University, and Hunter College, among other places) , she has mainly supported herself over the years as a writer, editor, and consultant. From 1976 to 1980 she and her friend Katharine Ogden worked as public policy consultants through their firm Lesser & Ogden Associates. In 1980 Lesser founded The Threepenny Review, which she still edits; it has become one of the most respected and long-lasting literary magazines in America. She is the author of eleven books (including one novel, two memoirs, several works of literary or cultural studies, and two biographies) and the editor of two. She also writes book, dance, art, and music reviews for a variety of publications in this country and abroad, dividing her year between Berkeley and New York so as to cover cultural activities on both coasts. Lesser is married to Richard Rizzo and has one son, Nick Rizzo.
