"Michael Collier's book is refreshing in its refusal to push for one particular aesthetic. He regards his own preference for realism over abstraction as more a matter of temperament than of considered judgment, and respects poets more skeptical than he is about the ability of poetry to connect with the world. The result is an engaging record of his influences and enthusiasms, which are wide enough to include both Whitman and Larkin, both Jorge Borges and William Maxwell."--Carl Dennis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Unknown Friends and Practical Gods "Michael...
"Michael Collier's book is refreshing in its refusal to push for one particular aesthetic. He regards his own preference for realism over abstraction ...
"Richard Stern is a literary treasure." ---Scott Turow
"Stern's new miscellany reveals a literary mind of the first order, thinking in elegant prose about dozens of interesting subjects." ---Philip Roth
"Stern is a great virtuoso. . . . I]n an ailing literary culture, we should be grateful for a work like this and a career, too, spanning the American half-century." ---New York Times Book Review
"Stern's skill gives vitality to everything he treats." ---Edmund White, Los Angeles Times
"Like a gifted dancer in a small space, Stern has...
"Richard Stern is a literary treasure." ---Scott Turow
"Stern's new miscellany reveals a literary mind of the first order, thinking in ele...
Still on Call is the sixth and final collection of critically acclaimed novelist and educator Richard Stern. 'Orderly miscellany' is the author's term for this aggregation of reflections, essays, reviews, reportage, commentary, and observations on writing and fellow writers, life, and contemporary culture. The collection's three sections, Coasting, Posting, and Hosting, contain pieces that range from reflections on becoming a writer in the 1940s to assessments of such major writers and close colleagues as E. L. Doctorow, Saul Below, and Donald Justice to topical offerings from Stern's popular...
Still on Call is the sixth and final collection of critically acclaimed novelist and educator Richard Stern. 'Orderly miscellany' is the author's term...
