Description
John Leonard was a lion of American letters. A passionate, erudite, and wide-ranging critic, he helped shape the landscape of modern literature. 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. Definitive reviews of Doris Lessing, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, and Philip Roth, among others, display Leonard's encyclopedic knowledge of literature and make this book a landmark achievement from one of America's most beloved and influential critics.
About the Author
John Leonard grew up in Washington, D.C., Jackson Heights, Queens, and Long Beach, California, where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. Raised by a single mother, Ruth Smith, he made his way to Harvard University, where he immersed himself in the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, only to drop out in the spring of his sophomore year. He then attended the University of California at Berkeley.Leonard was a voracious critical omnivore, writing on culture, politics, television, books and the media in many other venues, includingThe Nation, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, American Heritageand Salon.com. Leonard taught creative writing and criticism at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.Leonard wrote extensively about television in his career – forLifeandThe New York Times, both under the pen name Cyclops, forNew York Magazinefrom 1984 to 2008, and in his 1997 bookSmoke and Mirrors. In addition, he authored four novels and five collections of essays.Leonard was co-literary editor ofThe Nationwith his wife, Sue Leonard, from 1995 to 1998, and continued as a contributing editor for the magazine. He wrote a monthly column on new books forHarper'smagazine and was a frequent contributor to theNew York Times Book ReviewandThe New York Review of Books. Leonard rated highest among literary critics in a 2006 Time Out New York survey of writers and publishers. He received the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.
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