The Reading Room: Writing of the Moment [Paperback]

Barbara Probst Solomon (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

"The Reading Room" feature new stories, sections of novels, essays, and poetry for well-known writers with international reputations and new young writers just coming up. Contributors include Larry Rivers, Juan Goytisolo, Stanley Crouch, Madison Smartt Bell, Lionel Abel, Don Maggin, and Mark Minsky.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Great Marsh Press (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1928863051
• ISBN-13: 978-1928863052
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,957,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flor y nata, May 15, 2000

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Reading Room: Writing of the Moment (Paperback)

What a pleasure to come upon literary review of real quality. This is a wonderful collection of writers -- comfortable, funny, edgy, and stimulating. They have been brought together in a plain chunky book that smells good and is handsomely (and cleverly) printed. I sipped this morning's coffee as slowly as possible, ignored the phone, and read (into mid-morning) Juan Goytisolo, Daphne Merkin, Madison Smartt Bell, and Julian Rios. The best part is that when it's over, it's not over. There'll be more "Reading Rooms". The new year is looking pretty nice after all!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Reading Room" has Pizzazz, December 1, 2001

By 

C. Yoder (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reading Room: Writing of the Moment (Paperback)

I've read all three issues of The Reading Room, and Issue Three continues the inspiring path set by One and Two. Barbara Probst Solomon, the editor, in her own essay included in each issue, has a way of exploring an author as if she's in deep with them. In the case of Saul Bellow, in this issue, she is actually an old friend - she'd befriended his first wife in Europe, and then Bellow, too. (Probst Solomon was also friends with John Updike, with whom she has a lavish conversation in the first issue). With Bellow, it's a conversation that starts with the memoir material of their friendship and moves onto the influences of Don Quixote and Ulysses on his work, and his argument with intellectuals ("We like to celebrate our nihilism....The fact is that in the morning, factory gates open, and people go to work"). It's a jaunty, enlightening read.

For those interested in things `70's, which seems to be everyone these days, check out the piece on a primal scream therapy cult, written by one of its recuperating daughters, Judith Kellem. For people who are nostalgic for disco duck and bell bottoms, it's a little shock-treatment to be inside the walls of one of the more dodgy components of the decade.

A special element of The Reading Room is its embrace of writers from Europe and other countries. Theme headings help you navigate through the many offerings of each issue, and one such theme in this issue is "Sex and the Ultimate French Novel." Here is a work that will help satisfy the literary scene's new hunger for sex workers' stories. It's a new translation of Charles-Louis Philippe's novel, based on the author's real-life failed attempts to "save" a teenage prostitute, at the turn of the last century.

Aside from being international in flavor, this journal is on the eclectic tilt, with artwork that follows suit (William Anthony and Spanish artist Gonzalo Torne in this volume). At a full 300 some pages, The Reading Room is large enough (and expansive enough) to invite not only writers of national and international renown but a few new kids on the block, too. The mix makes this "room" energetic, a place where you want to hang out for a while and see what happens next.