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Rating: 
Summary: Probably an impossible task
Review: I bought this book mainly for the interviews the magazine has had over the years, and some of them with notoriously reticent figures like Nabokov and Hemingway. But I was disappointed, because what really distinguishes a Paris Review interview from those of other magazines is how well they're edited, and how beautifully and naturally the conversations flow. All we get here is single paragraphs, usually just anecdotes, funny stories, little opinions: sometimes they're profound (see Edmund White's page) or just convey the author's personality well (Faulkner, Hemingway), but all of them just made me upset about not being able to read the rest of the interview.Of course there's not enough space. But I would have thrown out most of the other material. I doubt there was any way to make this collection totally succesful: if you pick only the famous stuff that the magazine has published over the years, it's sort of a waste, since most people would either have read the selection already or wouldn't want to read just an excerpt. A first chapter is useful to get you excited about an upcoming book, but unnecessary if the book's already been published. If you limit yourself to the more obscure material, well, it'll be good, but there's a reason that some people remain obscure. Not that I didn't get a lot of pleasure out of this book. Heather McHugh's poem, for example, is beautiful, and I never would have run across it if I hadn't picked this up. There are little wonders sprinkled throughout, but too much of the rest is familiar, just okay, or an unsatisfying little piece of something larger. I hesitate to put forward this criticism, since I have no idea how I could do it better - but I do know what book I would rather have read. If anyone down at the magazine (which I hope will rebound from the sad loss of Plimpton) can put together a big volume of complete, untruncated interviews, I would pay a princely sum for it. I've seen earlier collections, but nothing that covers the entire Plimpton era, and I think it would be easier to pick just the great interviews than to squeeze thirty plus years of wonderful material into this enjoyable but probably ill-advised collection.
Rating:
Summary: Probably an impossible task
Review: I bought this book mainly for the interviews the magazine has had over the years, and some of them with notoriously reticent figures like Nabokov and Hemingway. But I was disappointed, because what really distinguishes a Paris Review interview from those of other magazines is how well they're edited, and how beautifully and naturally the conversations flow. All we get here is single paragraphs, usually just anecdotes, funny stories, little opinions: sometimes they're profound (see Edmund White's page) or just convey the author's personality well (Faulkner, Hemingway), but all of them just made me upset about not being able to read the rest of the interview. Of course there's not enough space. But I would have thrown out most of the other material. I doubt there was any way to make this collection totally succesful: if you pick only the famous stuff that the magazine has published over the years, it's sort of a waste, since most people would either have read the selection already or wouldn't want to read just an excerpt. A first chapter is useful to get you excited about an upcoming book, but unnecessary if the book's already been published. If you limit yourself to the more obscure material, well, it'll be good, but there's a reason that some people remain obscure. Not that I didn't get a lot of pleasure out of this book. Heather McHugh's poem, for example, is beautiful, and I never would have run across it if I hadn't picked this up. There are little wonders sprinkled throughout, but too much of the rest is familiar, just okay, or an unsatisfying little piece of something larger. I hesitate to put forward this criticism, since I have no idea how I could do it better - but I do know what book I would rather have read. If anyone down at the magazine (which I hope will rebound from the sad loss of Plimpton) can put together a big volume of complete, untruncated interviews, I would pay a princely sum for it. I've seen earlier collections, but nothing that covers the entire Plimpton era, and I think it would be easier to pick just the great interviews than to squeeze thirty plus years of wonderful material into this enjoyable but probably ill-advised collection.
Rating: 
Summary: sloppy seconds
Review: I'd love to read a book that lives up to the title of this one. The recent New Yorker anthologies of fiction, nonfiction, and humor come a lot closer. The Paris Review published the lesser work of major writers, and lately it has been mostly given over to the longueurs of lightweights like Rick Moody. Plimpton will go down in literary history as a negligible, starstruck, Robin Leach-like figure, a party boy of narrow taste and ken. His magazine has been irrelevant for at least two decades now.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Anthology, Longest Title Award
Review: This book makes a perfect gift for both serious literature junkies and those who have blown off reading for the past fifty years. If the former applies to you, here's the best from the best. If you're in the latter category, this book will catch you up to speed. The Paris Review published the first chapter of Kerouac's ON THE ROAD, the first chapter of McInerney's BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY, the first chapter of Franzan's THE CORRECTIONS, etc., etc., etc. Obviously, they've been able to spot new talent from the day they started even to today. And of course, their fantastic interviews with writers themselves are legendary. A must for the collector and the neophyte alike.
Rating:
Summary: 750 pages of good writing is a bargain
Review: Well I have never read a copy of the magazine The Paris Review but have subscribed to Granta since it started and subscribe to The New Yorker. The first story in the anthology "Terrific Mother" by Lorrrie Moore was enough for me to give this five stars - let's face it, where can you get such a thrill for $21? There may be some stories, poems, interviews, that don't grab me with the same electric immediacy as that first story, but I don't have to read it from cover to cover. It's one of those terrific bedside books as far as I'm concerned and an absolute joy to explore.
Rating:
Summary: 750 pages of good writing is a bargain
Review: Well I have never read a copy of the magazine The Paris Review but have subscribed to Granta since it started and subscribe to The New Yorker. The first story in the anthology "Terrific Mother" by Lorrrie Moore was enough for me to give this five stars - let's face it, where can you get such a thrill for $21? There may be some stories, poems, interviews, that don't grab me with the same electric immediacy as that first story, but I don't have to read it from cover to cover. It's one of those terrific bedside books as far as I'm concerned and an absolute joy to explore.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmph...
Review: Well, as a whole the book was certainly worth reading. It was a bit less organized than the title perhaps suggests...but who said a book can't be mildly random. I have only two warnings for prospective buyers. 1) The poetry selections weren't uniformly fabulous, and, in my ignorant opinion, lagged behind the short stories in quality. 2) A lot of the big name authors appear only in passing. For example, only two selections of Faulkner's work appear...both short (less than a page in length) segments of interviews on the art of writing. Have fun reading the book...just don't expect it to deliver on all its promises.
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