{"product_id":"9781644210215","title":"Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style","description":"Kurt Vonnegut used to like to say, \"Practicing an art form is a way to grow your soul.\" He would screw up his lips into a prune face after he said this because of how important he believed this idea to be. \u003ci\u003ePity the Reader\u003c\/i\u003e is the very embodiment of that idea, a book about writing and life and why the two go together.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eIt includes rare photos and reproductions, Vonnegut's own account in his own words of how he became a writer and why it matters, and previously untold stories by and about Vonnegut as teacher and friend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out he was generous to a fault about students' writing, idiosyncratic, a bit tortured and always creative as a teacher, and here in this book that portrait becomes our gateway into getting to know Kurt Vonnegut better than we ever have before as a human being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVonnegut recounts that his favorite work of art among all those his children produced \"so far\" is a letter his daughter Nanette wrote to a disgruntled customer, after he had tormented a new waitress at the restaurant where she had just started working, and then he shares the letter with us. Thus he illustrates his first writing rule: \"Find a subject you care about.\" This book is full of such rare, intimately teachable moments, and they add up to something special. \u003ci\u003ePity the Reader \u003c\/i\u003eindeed.","brand":"Seven Stories Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42371245998141,"sku":"9781644210215","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0603\/0838\/9949\/files\/9781644210215_p0.jpg?v=1771591897","url":"https:\/\/www.tatteredcover.com\/products\/9781644210215","provider":"Tattered Cover","version":"1.0","type":"link"}