Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell

Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell vacillated between feeling engagingly insightful and annoyingly repetitive yet even the repetition felt like it served a purpose. Pity the Reader is part biography, part examination of Vonnegut's work, and part elaboration on Vonnegut's opinions and teachings. I thought I'd read some of Vonnegut's work years ago - like high school or college, but as I read through the descriptions of his work I became increasingly convinced I didn't. Somehow, that realization made Pity the Reader more intriguing to me than it was when I started. I'm very glad I read Pity the Reader, but I do believe it is a book that won't appeal to everyone. Also, I want to point out that I read the exercises included at the end but opted not to do them for a variety of reasons - mostly that I'd done some version of most of them at some other point in my life. I do think they could be very helpful and I might return to some of them when I feel stuck for one reason or another. Overall, if you're interested in Kurt Vonnegut, writing, or the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, you would probably enjoy this book.


Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including:


Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy by Wyatt Welch
The Woman in Me by Brittany Spears
Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin
Petals of the Moon: A Poetry Collection by C. Churchill
The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes



Reviews will be posted as I finish these books.


Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meaning if you click on those links and make a purchase, I earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

If you'd like to follow what I'm reading in real time, please follow/friend me on Goodreads.

If you'd like to see when I publish new books, please follow me on Amazon.

If you'd like to learn more about me, please visit tlcooper.com.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Image
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert grabbed my attention from the first page. Kolbert illustrates the future of extinction by illuminating the history of extinction. She tells a story of the Earth we inhabit in both scientific and historical terms related to the myriad species of animals that have and do inhabit the Earth. She travels to myriad places on the Earth to talk to scientists and historians. I felt like she took me along on her journey to places I would never go on my own. She discussed the effects of natural processes as well as unnatural processes affecting the extinction of species and how those extinctions lead to other extinctions. Her references to previous mass extinctions were always linked to the story of our Earth and present-day extinctions. She talked about frogs, bats, auks, coral, and trees among other things. The Sixth Extinction doesn't shy away from pointing out how each species is a part of an ecosystem and how all our eco
Read more

A Snitch in Time by Sunny Frazier

Image
Sunny Frazier always delights, and A Snitch in Time is no exception. She writes the Christy Bristol series in a way that feels lighthearted even in its darkest moments. When Bristol goes on vacation to visit her friend, Lennie, she never expects to get drafted into working for a different department doing her job. Bristol is intrigued enough by the crime at hand that her protestations seem half-hearted at times though her annoyance is very real. When she and Lennie get into a fight, she's left with nothing but the work the department expects her to do. Frazier drops the reader in the Sierra Nevada Foothills creating a sense of isolation that makes the reader cheer for Bristol to stand up to her superiors and get out of there while simultaneously wanting to her to solve the crime. When a witness contacts Bristol via phone she doesn't take her seriously at first only to discover she might have vital information. With suspicion cast in multiple directions, Bristol isn't sur
Read more

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.

Image
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. pushed my buttons... mostly in the best way. Neff offers her research, her own experiences, and her observations mixed with information from myriad disciplines ranging from spiritual to neuroscience. I had read quite a bit of what Neff offers in other places, but she pulls it together in a way that makes it easy to understand and that makes self-compassion feel accessible and attainable. Her arguments for shifting from self-esteem to self-compassion and self-appreciation were better than I expected. She includes exercises along the way to help the reader access self-compassion. Self-Compassion feels like an introductory course and left me curious about what the research has shown since its publication. Neff supports and explains her premise of the life-changing benefits of self-compassion so well that I began to re-examine my own self-compassion journey with a bit more compassion... Check back soon for
Read more