execution prometheus remembering independent

books:

1 review
Wendy Lesser

Pantheon, 2007

A well written mess...
I confess I have no idea what is intended by "Room for Doubt." The cover illustration, a reproduction of a painting called The Balcony Room, sets the enigmatic tone. An image of a feminine room with sunlight touching the floorboards and wind rustling the curtains, it is significant perhaps because the art is found in Berlin, where the first essay is set. Or perhaps it is meant to convey grief and ...

Indian Summer (New York Review Books Classics)

3 reviews
William Dean Howells

NYRB Classics, 2004

Indian Summer
This excellent novel by Howells is a May-December love story. Middle-aged Theodore Colville falls in love with young and pretty Imogene Graham. The relationship borders on the ridiculous, but it's only when Imogene falls for a younger man that Colville calls it all off. One wonders what took him so long. The dialogue, especially when Colville is involved, crackles with wit. This is Howells's own ...

Pictures at an Execution

1 review
Wendy Lesser

Harvard University Press, 1998

Too Much Criticism, Not Enough Substance
Lesser does not pretend to be engaging in anything other than literary criticism to identify the social and moral dimensions of televising executions, but I find that the intersting parts are when she directly discusses KQED's court case. KQED, the San Francisco public television, was seeking permission to broadcast an execution at San Quentin State Prison. I acknowledge that literary ...

Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Everyman's Library classics)

1 review
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Everyman's Library, 1992

Gothic at its best
Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body ...

The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters

9 reviews
Wendy Lesser

Pantheon, 1999

Lesser is More
Only a sourpuss could dislike this engaging, enlightening and well-crafted autobiography by Threepenny Review's founder and editor, Wendy Lesser. In two dozen essays, we not only learn about the great obstacles inherent in starting a literary journal, we see how Lesser developed as a reader and observer. This is a delightful read filled with Lesser's wonderful observations on love, art and ...

The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongue

2 reviews
Wendy Lesser

Anchor, 2005

Wonderful Reading!
Wonderful collection of essays by first-rank writers on the transition from the native language to our American version of English. Starting of course with the example of Joseph Conrad they offer insights into their intial contact with English in their childhoods and how this shaped their perceptions of the US and ease their entry into our society. Since I have first hand experience with most ...

Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering

1 review
Wendy Lesser

Houghton Mifflin, 2002

On my 'most beloved' shelf.
I read this when it first came out, and have reread it again several times since. Some of it I now know by heart, and it has become a part of me. Which is to say, Wendy Lesser has affected my thinking about Art and the way we view Art through life. It has helped me rediscover books and movies that I had previously written off as a younger man. Some colleagues have told me that it changed ...

The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues

4 reviews

Pantheon, 2004

Satisfyingly dives into the many realms of language
If you are at all interested in language, language-acquisition, and how language (multi-linguilism) and life/identity intertwine, you'll love curling up with this book. There are 15 essays, arranged by the non-English (mother-tongue) language of the writer. Each of the six writers I have read thus far have approached the subject in wholly different (and mostly fascinating) lights. Tan is ...