Customer Reviews

Literary Reflections

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As with all books written by James Michener, I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter of this little book of reflections. Not only does he share some of his personal stories, but he gives us his thoughts about several other famous writers whom he respects.

James Michener is a genius, in my opinion. His book, Centennial, remains my favorite, however, I own many of his books and recommend them to all serious readers. His writing style is easy to read and comprehend; he combines historical facts with some fiction and creates a masterpiece.

In this book of wonderful little stories and analysis, is his classic piece entitled "Who Is Virgil T. Fry". It's great!

James Michener is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and many of his books were made into movies. He wrote over seven decades and traveled widely. A most extraordinary man, he tells us in this, his last book, about several authors, poets, and books that determined his attitudes concerning novels, styles of writing, and how his own style of writing was shaped.

Once you have read a James Michener novel, you will be hooked!
His research, his insights, and his genius for story telling will thrill you from the beginning and this book, his last, written in 1993, is a treasure.

For anyone interested in the craft of writing, this is a fun book to have; it is clever and unsentimental. Michener recalls encounters with Hemmingway, as he (Michener) was asked to write a blurb for The Old Man and the Sea (after a dissapointing Across the River and Through the Tress) which, as a result, made it a bestseller and garnered it the Pulitzer Prize, with Margaret Mitchell at Macmillan, and how he marveled at how tiny and thin she was, with Truman Capote and how they both escorted a beautiful woman together, and many other wonderful recollections. It is not trite with sentimentality. This is a book of an old man looking fondly back at his encounters with some of the literary legends who changed literature as we know it.