false 9599 2 Kurt Vonnegut (<I>Breakfast of Champions</I>): writer of wild, satiric, outrageous fiction. Lee Stringer (<I>Grand Central Winter</I>): one-time homeless crack addict who discovered that pencils are not just drug implements. Kurt Vonnegut & Lee Stringer: a mutual admiration society. <I>Like Shaking Hands with God</I>: a transcription of two moderated conversations between Vonnegut & Stringer--one before a bookstore audience, one over lunch. <I>Shaking Hands</I> has a slender profile & a pretty cover. But the only thing slight about these conversations is that they leave the reader wanting more. The book is billed as "a conversation about writing," but it is as much about life as about writing. Neither Vonnegut nor Stringer is interested in holing up in a garret to write. Vonnegut makes any excuse to go out & rub elbows with the folks who buy lottery tickets. Stringer wonders, "Can you write anything on Park Avenue, really?" Vonnegut laments his happy childhood as "no way for a writer to begin." Stringer panics--while he wrote his first book as if on a high, the next one may emerge from an awareness of Oprah & marketability. Vonnegut & Stringer are passionate about one another's work, passionate about life & passionate about writing, but not so much so that they ever, for a moment, lose their sense of irony or humor. In the age of the soundbite, literature can be deemed, on some level, useless. Stringer praises writing, in that context, as "a struggle to preserve our right to be not so practical." And Vonnegut? "We are here on Earth to fart around," he proclaims in <I>Timequake</I>: "Don't let anybody tell you any different!"--Jane Steinberg 12410 1 12 2000 Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing total:231|5:46|4:82|3:84|2:18|1:1| 231 847 455 13 5 1 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 15:52:14 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 18:49:27 -0800 2009 4 0 true false Wed Jun 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 09:23:14 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 09:24:18 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Feb 26 18:36:16 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 18:39:27 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 10:52:06 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 06:36:58 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sun Aug 12 22:29:42 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 14 10:44:22 -0700 2007
In this rich conversation, the 2 authors discuss their own approaches to writing and their relat...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 17:50:04 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 17:50:50 -0700 2007 0 0 false false Fri Mar 28 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 14:48:34 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 14:50:17 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Mon May 14 09:39:46 -0700 2007 Mon May 14 09:40:01 -0700 2007 0 0 false false Thu Mar 20 16:29:22 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 20 16:30:02 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Thu Aug 02 22:05:17 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 02 22:06:28 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Sun May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 04 14:35:36 -0700 2008 Sun May 31 09:36:09 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Oct 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 08:22:34 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 16:04:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Jan 28 19:34:49 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 19:35:01 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Wed Nov 04 21:50:04 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 04 21:50:04 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Nov 03 17:50:04 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 17:50:04 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Oct 29 08:21:16 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 08:21:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 27 23:29:16 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 23:29:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 27 16:41:32 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 16:41:32 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Oct 27 09:38:57 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 09:38:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Oct 26 12:03:39 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 12:03:39 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=9599