{"product_id":"pity-the-reader","title":"Pity the Reader","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. Pity the Reader is the very embodiment of that idea, a book about writing and life and why the two go together. It 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. It 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. Vonnegut 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. Pity the Reader indeed.","brand":"Landmark Booksellers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42873677873392,"sku":"9781644210215","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0586\/1385\/8477\/products\/content_cf9c48a8-8de2-4e00-bce4-3a6d89d4431b.jpg?v=1653420649","url":"https:\/\/landmark-booksellers.myshopify.com\/products\/pity-the-reader","provider":"Landmark Booksellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}