Who could ever have thought a book where authors, poets, an editor and a director who have no special item to promote could ever be something precious?

Well, considering these people are, in order, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, James M. Cain, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Stone, Robert Gottlieb, Richard Price, Billy Wilder, Jack Gilbert and Joan Didion, the die is kinda cast.

The subjects vary. And so do the tones of the people involved. While Parker and Capote kick off the book by being very funny and obliging, Hemingway and Eliot are much more serious, yet still cast a wholly different shadow on things, at least considering how Hemingway divulges no intimacies in his books while Capote could seemingly stab into any aspect of his writing.

I've posted a few screen-shots from the book here to give you examples of some of the interviewers' and interviewees' quotes: http://issuu.com/pivic/docs/paris_book_reviews_1

I've never before come across such a great collection of inspiration and depth into the art of creating books, apart from sheer writing and living.

My faves: Parker, Capote, Hemingway, Borges, Vonnegut, Gottlieb, Wilder and Gilbert. Those are many, right? Says a lot.

Can't wait to get into the second volume!