Tuesday, July 13, 2010

What is Joanne Lessner reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Joanne Sydney Lessner, author of the newly released novel Pandora’s Bottle.

Her entry begins:
You’ve caught me in a spate of re-reading, which is fairly unusual for me! In general, I subscribe to the ‘too many books, too little time’ school of thought, but occasionally, I find myself revisiting favorite works for specific reasons:

I’m reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban aloud to my 9 year-old daughter. I’ve read the series silently for myself, of course, and aloud once before in its entirety to my son who is now 14. I love to read the Potter books this way. What fabulously juicy and idiosyncratic characters – it’s actor catnip! Really, why should Jim Dale have all the fun? I keep the narrator in my own voice and layer on various British dialects for the others. My favorite character to do is Professor Trelawney, the loopy divination teacher. The only problem with reading the Potter books aloud is that I cry unabashedly at various key points and have to...[read on]
Among the early praise for Pandora’s Bottle:
Pandora's Bottle is as delicious as a vintage Château Lafite and almost as rare—a novel that is as entertaining as it is smart. Joanne Sydney Lessner serves it with just the right dish of human folly.”
—Marc Acito, author of How I Paid for College and Attack of the Theater People

“Lessner has served up a bubbly, big-haired and big-hearted opus magnum, redolent of the vanities of New York, with a whiff of Wodehouse and a dash of Dickens, full of raucous overtones but with a gentle finish. Drinkable immediately!”
—Jonathan Levi, author of A Guide for the Perplexed and co-founder of Granta

“Joanne Sydney Lessner has carefully crafted a well-wrought, fun, and fast-paced book detailing the highs and lows of the wine world. A great read.”
—Carlo De Vito, author of East Coast Wineries and 10 Secrets My Dog Taught Me
Visit Joanne Sydney Lessner's website.

Writers Read: Joanne Lessner.

--Marshal Zeringue