Some people think James Wood, Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University, is our best living literary critic. I’m on the bubble with that issue, but I do admire Wood’s love of literature. In these very accessible lectures, James Wood discusses Chekhov, Fitzgerald, W. G. Sebald, Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Cervantes, and a dozen other writers. If you’re in the mood for some intelligent writing about great writers, I recommend The Nearest Thing to Life. GRADE: A-
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Why?
Serious Noticing
Using Everything
Secular Homelessness
Acknowledgments
Notes