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The Reader Bringing books to life
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0151 794 2830 Writers and critics recently voted Toni Morrison’s Beloved as the best novel of the last 25 years in a poll conducted by The New York Times; but what piece of American writing do American readers love the most? If the list was widened to include all literary forms, and spanned the entire history of American writing from The Declaration of Independence and Huckleberry Finn to Death of a Salesman and the poetry of Walt Whitman, what would come out on top? The Reader intends to find out. The Reader is a quarterly British literary magazine supported by the University of Liverpool and has been described by Seamus Heaney as ‘one of the best things to thump through the letter-box. Full of pithy, passionate and precise things.’ Including writing by John Carey and John Burnside, an interview with Doris Lessing and featuring Les Murray as a contributing editor, The Reader launched its American presence in autumn 2005 with a focus on great American writers, past and present. Now we want to discover the top ten pieces of American literature – as voted for by American readers. The poll will be broadly based, embracing poems, plays, novels, essays, fiction and non-fiction. It will be conducted over the course of a year in the ‘Newsroom’ section of The Reader’s website, http://www.thereader.co.uk, where you can also find more information about the magazine including back issues and subscription details. The site will be updated regularly to display the current results. Voters are also encouraged to include comments on their choices, a selection of which will be published on the website. The Reader |