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The Writer's Desk
 
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The Writer's Desk [Hardcover]

Jill Krementz (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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A dangerous book--deadly to keep on your desk as Jill Krementz's compelling photos of authors at work will lure you back again and again, leaving your own writing untended. This volume cost me two or three good pages as I peeked in on Eudora Welty and read about her anticipated six o'clock bourbon, glanced at books on Tennessee Williams's shelves and wondered if Veronica Chambers ever gets a stiff neck from writing on her laptop like that. The Writer's Desk is a perfect gift for readers, yes, but if you're a writer, well, you've been warned.

From School Library Journal

YA. Students of creative writing will find validation in this peek at the work spaces of famous writers and the spare but telling comments about their writing regimes. Writers of fiction and nonfiction, living and dead, mainly from the U.S. and Europe, form an eclectic mix. Some are familiar contemporary figures such a Amy Tan, Stephen King, and Joyce Carol Oates; others are from an older generation and include Archibald MacLeish, Dorothy West, and Ralph Ellison. Krementz has captured the 57 writers at work in evocative black-and-white photos. Each entry includes a short text by the subject describing how he or she creates or created. These routines are enlightening in their rich variety. Some writers follow strict schedules and allow no interruptions; others have no plan, often seemingly wasting time until the creative urge takes over. Every manner of dress (from pajamas to jacket and tie), position (from sitting on top of a desk to reclining with a lap-top in bed), and environment (from a cluttered office to the rustic cabin) is described. Readers' curiosity may well be piqued by these insightful tidbits and result in further research on an unfamiliar author. An introduction by John Updike includes an interesting description of how he uses his three desks as well as an unnecessary elaboration of the book's contents.?Jackie Gropman, Kings Park Library, Burke,
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars Oddly affecting, Jan 16 2001
By 
C. Ebeling "ctlpareader" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Writer's Desk (Hardcover)
First let me say that I am attached to my copy of The Writer's Desk. It may not leave the house. Get your own!

That said, I have to profess some mystery as to the depth of my own feeling or why someone should purposely purchase this for themselves. It is a small scale coffee table book for English majors, a nice gift for the contemporary lit minded or a gem to pluck off a sale table for oneself. Krementz's black and white photographs speak of her talent though I'm not sure I learn that much from them. They are more like illustrations for text that is all but missing, except for brief author quotes, or like roped off rooms in a writer's house turned local museum. But that's the problem we have with any creative artist--we can collect and assemble the physical life molecule by molecule (anyone here read Flaubert's Parrot?) and we will never quite understand how those great sentences get shaped the way they do.

At least we can marvel at the conditions under which those sentences get down, how each writer exerts order and control in a corner of their lives, to get their work done.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A great writers' browsing book . . ., Nov 29 2000
By 
This review is from: The Writer's Desk (Hardcover)
Every writer looks around his workplace sometimes and wonders what other writers' desks look like. It's almost a prurient interest. Krementz, who is married to Kurt Vonnegut and is a leading photojournalist, has photographed more than 1,500 writers at work in the past thirty years. This splendid slender book brings together photos of fifty-three authors in their habitats, from Pablo Neruda and Archibald MacLeish to Stephen King and Edwidge Dandicat. Each photo is accompanied by each author's thoughts on desks, typewriters, and writing methods and times of day. This is the sort of book you'll pick up over and over again, examining the clutter on James Merrill's desk, or wondering if you should try writing in bed, like Walker Percy or Cathleen Schine. Highly recommended.
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3.0 out of 5 stars It's fun...and light, May 12 2000
This review is from: The Writer's Desk (Hardcover)
This is primarily a picture book: you're not going to get a lot of biographical information or much of anything about the deep thoughts of the writers featured here.

But still, it's a fun book. If nothing else, there is something reassuring in knowing that some of my heroes have even sloppier desk-keeping habits than me.... I think the nicest part is just the dream of writing that many of us have...the dream of the home office, arranged in an unabasedly intimate way. This is an especially fun fantasy for us drones who, trapped in Herman Miller cubiclesville, yearn for a meaningful, soul-feeding place to do work.

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