The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading

New
Paperback
2019
$11.00

An insightful account of the key role reading has played in the life of literary icon Edmund White Edmund White made his name as a writer, but he remembers his life through the books he read. For White, each momentous occasion came with books to match: Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality; the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York; the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of White's novels. Blending memoir and literary criticism, The Unpunished Vice is a compendium of all the ways reading has shaped White's life and work. With characteristic wit and candour, he recalls reading Henry James to Peggy Guggenheim in her private gondola in Venice, and phone calls at eight o'clock in the morning to Vladimir Nabokov - who once said that White was his favourite American writer. Featuring writing that has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review and The Times Literary Supplement, among others, The Unpunished Vice is a wickedly smart and insightful account of a life in literature.

Synopsis

An insightful account of the key role reading has played in the life of literary icon Edmund White Edmund White made his name as a writer, but he remembers his life through the books he read. For White, each momentous occasion came with books to match: Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality; the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York; the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of White's novels. Blending memoir and literary criticism, The Unpunished Vice is a compendium of all the ways reading has shaped White's life and work. With characteristic wit and candour, he recalls reading Henry James to Peggy Guggenheim in her private gondola in Venice, and phone calls at eight o'clock in the morning to Vladimir Nabokov - who once said that White was his favourite American writer. Featuring writing that has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review and The Times Literary Supplement, among others, The Unpunished Vice is a wickedly smart and insightful account of a life in literature.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 16 May 2019
ISBN 10: 1408870274
ISBN 13: 9781408870273
Book Overview: An insightful account of the key role reading has played in the life of literary icon Edmund White

Media Reviews

Praise for Edmund White * - *
A writer blessed with ... [an] elusive gift, and it should probably be called wisdom * Daily Telegraph *
His writing finds itself echoing Proust ... Since the publication of A Boy's Own Story thirty years ago, [White's] own prose style has hardly aged a day * The Times *
Edmund White is one of the best writers of my generation; he's certainly the contemporary American writer I reread more than any other, and the one whose next book I look forward to reading most -- John Irving
White's prose is a series of slaps to the face, filled with reckless energy * New York Times Book Review *
White simply does it better than most -- Neil Bartlett * Guardian *
One of America's pre-eminent men of letters ... White's great achievement lies in his never holding back * Washington Post *
Edmund White tells such a good story that I'm ready to to listen to anything he wants to talk about -- praise for 'The Flaneur' * New York Times *
He never descends to savage satire. This open-heartedness, an essential White quality, makes his writing sparkle with generosity ... Every detail is alive and gleaming ... It is also a book that floats above things, so light is its touch, so playful and joyous its execution -- praise for 'Our Young Man', Neel Mukherjee * Guardian *

Author Bio

Edmund White is the author of many novels, including A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, The Farewell Symphony, and, most recently, Our Young Man. His nonfiction includes City Boy, Inside a Pearl, and other memoirs; The Flaneur, about Paris; and literary biographies and essays. White lives in New York.