Wonderful insight in writing and reading from great minds.

It's not as inspiring as I hoped it would be, but has some neat ideas about writing as a profession. I appreciated the observation that the audience of novels is actually quite small, not as large, for example as the pop music audience. Readers not only have to be literate, but also imaginative, and intelligent enough to understand irony.

This one I want to read, but can not find a copy - ie used.

I enjoyed hearing these two talk about their writing. Very quick read.

Una lettura breve e abbastanza interessante. La parte più bella è quella in cui si parla di quanto sia arduo stare 9 ore ogni giorno a battere su una tastiera, e sollevante trovare qualcuno che dia un senso a quel lavoro, semplicemente complimentandosi.

excellent insight into kurt's writing process with the benefit of him looking back on his whole career and on the heels of his most autobiographical work, timequake.

i don't know much about stringer, but i plan to read the book they discuss in this dialogue.

A book of conversation between two brilliant writers with much to say and the gift to say it well. However, though this kite got off the ground, it did not soar.

“And of course literature is the only art that requires our audience to be performers.”
--- Kurt Vonnegut

“... how as human beings do we relate to one another? Anything beyond that is bullshit.”
--- Lee Stringer

for a self-proclaimed atheist, vonnegut certainly loves and believes in the forces of the universe. lots of lovely quotes and thoughts on writing, art, and human control over misfortune. enjoyed the contrast between vonnegut’s brash confidence and stringer’s cautious wisdom. a good little book!

Leggerei pure la lista della spesa di Vonnegut

A very short read. The first half reported on a book reading held in 1998, in which Lee Stringer and Kurt Vonnegut discuss their new books. The second half deals with a private follow-up conversation that the authors had.

I especially liked the way they brought Mark Twain and heaven and Hell into it.

My favorite passage, an excerpt from Stringer's book "Grand Central Winter":

"When it comes to justice, the kind that gets you locked up is different than the kind you find inside. Personally I would like to see all judges and district attorneys made to do time. Not for the crimes they commit from the bench. For those they commit out of ignorance. Which is precisely why time in prison should be part of their qualifications. So that they might come to know what they don't know they don't know.

Let them sit faceless and despised in the holding cells, let them be run through the wringer of their process until the wind has been wrung out of their self-righteousness. And let them stumble upon the wisdom every two-bit con knows instinctively, that real justice is always poetic."

This was a beautiful introduction to Kurt Vonnegut, who I had never read before. I loved the things he and Stringer said about writing. Lovely lovely lovely.