The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters

In this unusual memoir of the life of the mind, the founding editor of The Threepenny Review reflects upon the choices she has made in pursuit of her vocation as a self-described "eighteenth-century man of letters". Wendy Lesser, one of our shrewdest cultural observers, describes how her education, her experiences, and the works of her favorite writers, artists, and performers have shaped and deepened her understanding of the world. She shows us how she has created an independent life as a writer, editor, and critic, free to follow her enthusiasms where they lead her. Above all, she offers an engaging inquiry into how we discover our passions and how they discover us.

Whether her subject is Mark Morris's choreography, the delights of e-mail, the odd assortment of words that were born the same year she was, or the moral implications of giving to beggars (pondered by way of Dickens and Henry James), Lesser's acute wisdom and elegant prose render a beguiling portrait of a remarkable mind at work.