The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1-4 [Box set] [Paperback]

The Paris Review (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2009

For more than half a century, The Paris Review has conducted in-depth interviews with our leading novelists, poets, and playwrights.  These revealing, revelatory self-portraits have come to be recognized as themselves classic works of literature, and an essential and definitive record of the writing life.  This beautiful slipcase edition brings together all four volumes of Picador’s selected Paris Review Interviews, including Q&As with Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Price, Joan Didion, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Larkin, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Robert Lowell, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Maya Angelou, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Marilynne Robinson, and more.   

 

The Paris Review Interviews Box Set is an indispensable treasury of wisdom from the world’s literary masters.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Paris Review books should be given out at dinner parties, readings, riots, weddings, galas -- shindigs of every shape. And they're perfect for the classroom too, from high schools all the way to MFA programs. In fact, I run a whole semester-long creative writing class based on the interviews. How else would I get the world's greatest living writers, living and dead, to come into the classroom with their words of wisdom, folly and fury? These books are wonderful, provocative, indispensible."--Colum McCann, novelist and Hunter College professor

"The most remarkable and extensive interviewing project we possess. . . . A series of excursions, alternately purposeful and capricious, with side trips, stops for tea, and mystifications."--The New York Times
 
"A small treasure. The interviews are literary landmarks, and the gossip, humor, ideas, and practical advice dispensed are bracing."--San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Utterly absorbing . . . The interviews are all fascinating and often quite funny."--The Boston Globe

 

"Groundbreaking, eclectic, indispensable Q&As."--Elle

"The unguarded moment . . . that's the holy grail for any interviewer trying to discover what makes a writer tick. The Paris Review has a long history of delivering such moments in the author interviews it has conducted over the past half century."--The Seattle Times

"As The Paris Review Interviews reveals, there is an art to the interview and a value to what it brings. . . . In the best interviews, the exchange of question and answer brings the authors to life."--The Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating interviews . . . [The subjects] discuss their writing and methods with detail and candidness found nowhere else. While lit fans will undoubtedly be satisfied, aspiring authors will glean tremendous insight from these masters of the craft."--The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)


"A stimulating, funny, and provocative snapshot of five decades' worth of (mostly) American literary history . . . The resulting conversations are luminous and often revelatory."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune

 

"Fascinating . . . This book will intrigue and delight any serious reader or writer. It may even inspire."--The Times Literary Supplement (London)

 

"Here is a canon of great minds. . . . A fascinating attempt at getting to the heart of how writers work."--Financial Times (London)

About the Author

The Paris Review has published early and important work by Philip Roth, V. S. Naipaul, Jeffrey Eugenides, A. S. Byatt, T. C. Boyle, William T. Vollmann, and many other great writers of the past half century. Some of the magazine's greatest hits have been collected by Picador in The Paris Review Book of People with Problems as well as The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms and The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953.

Philip Gourevitch was named editor of The Paris Review in 2005, succeeding George Plimpton, who was editor from 1953 until his death in 2003.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Picador (November 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312429169
• ISBN-13: 978-0312429164
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Every Penny!, March 9, 2010

By 

A. Gilbert "keepwriting" (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1-4 (Paperback)

After pondering buying the first volume of this boxed set, I bought the boxed set on impulse. It's worth every penny! Not only is the boxed set a great savings (each of the four books retails in stores for $16) but I'm so glad I have three other volumes to enjoy after this first one.

The greatest authors of our recent history are thoroughly interviewed and probed regarding their daily life, their writing habits, their struggles and greatest successes, and more. For each author the interviewer also provides a two or three page introductory biography.

The Paris Review Interviews have been a generous academic source for me throughout my educational career, now I'm grateful to have the four volume anthology on my desk.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Paris Review Interviews vols 1-4, July 13, 2010

By 

John Mclafferty (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1-4 (Paperback)

I completed vol 1 and look forward to the following books for hours of pleasure. What a treasure trove of insight and fly on the wall listening pleasure where two intelligent people discuss literary works, work habits, experiences and a whole bag of things. Wonderfully crafted. Each interview allows the reader to follow the trains of thought in the interviewer's mind as if the subject and the reader are on the edge of their seats waiting for the next question. No trick questions. Some of the contrasts are striking. Hemingway, for example seems very aggressive and paranoid while Borges is magical. Recommended highly...

5.0 out of 5 stars invaluable, October 13, 2010

By 

tattletail - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1-4 (Paperback)

This is a gift everyone who writes or reads should give themselves and anyone who has the opportunity should give to someone.