James Wood, "The Nearest Thing to Life" 

In these heartfelt essays, several originally delivered as the 2013 Mandel Lectures in the Humanities, Wood, a Harvard professor, The New Yorker literary critic, novelist, and author of How Fiction Works, explores the beauty and power of the art of reading. Looking at the essential role books have played in his own life, Wood combines memoir with an eloquent consideration of several works including The Blue Flower, The Emigrants, and Chekhov’s story “The Kiss.”
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