There Is Simply Too Much To Think About: Collected Nonfiction - Hardcover

Praise for THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT, edited by Benjamin Taylor:
A "New York Times "Editor's Choice
"Rare are the novelists who write nonfiction comparable in strength to their fiction. Now that the bulk of his nonfiction has been drawn together from where the pieces first appeared separately, one sees that, like Henry James and John Updike, the great Saul Bellow was no less the master of the one genre than the other. This book overwhelms one like any artistic treasure newly discovered. When it came to wondrous lucidity in the service of an uncanny literary empathy--to a steady downpour of intelligence--to a direct contact with reality--to a sensibility attuned to the contradictions and the incongruities--he was unrivaled. Like the book of Bellow's correspondence collected several years back by Benjamin Taylor--the same intrepid editor who is the harvester here--"There Is Simply Too Much to Think About"further extends our sense of Bellow's extremely humane way of experiencing books, people, events, and places. One witnesses his excited mind, in a molten state, running over."-- Philip Roth
Magnificent. . . "There Is Simply Too Much to Think About "is not merely a complement to Bellow s fiction. It is an intimate portrait of Bellow s defiant, irascible mind, and a milestone of twentieth-century criticism. . . The collection offers a triumphant overabundance of riches which is exactly why we read Bellow in the first place. "The New York Review of Books"

There is wide-open writing here about Chicago, [Bellow's] hometown, and about topics like con men, terrorism, Paris and Vermont, writers like Ralph Ellison and J.D. Salinger and the idiocies of certain critics and scholars. . . When he is swinging freely, out in the fresh air, Bellow pops both long drives and birdies like Arnold Palmer on a crisp Sunday morning. There is no finer fedora to climb beneath. " "Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"

"As I read "There Is Simply Too Much to Think About"I was reminded of why I taught Bellow in the first place, and perhaps why he won the Nobel Prize over other potential Nobel winners like Philip Roth or Norman Mailer: The man can write American English like no one else."" ""Chicago Tribune"
"["There Is Simply Too Much to Think About]"sits handsomely next to Bellow s collected letters from 2010. . . Benjamin Taylor deserves our gratitude for assembling two extraordinary collections." " The Wall Street Journal"
This rich . . . collection of Bellow s reviews, essays, speeches, and interviews illuminate his lifelong exploration of what it means to be an American, a Jew, and a writer. As assembled by Taylor, the pieces succeed in showing that Bellow s calling was, in the novelist s own words, not to preach but to relate. "Publishers Weekly "
In this splendid volume, Bellow does indeed give us much to think about. . . " ""Associated Press"
"A provocative and revealing glimpse inside [Bellow's] mind . . . For readers who want to engage with one of the great writers of the 20th century, ["There is Simply Too Much to Think About]"is nothing short of a literary feast." -- "Minneapolis Star-Tribune"
" . . .There Is Simply Too Much to Think About"provides us with a fine portrait of the artist who, in David Eggers's words, could remind you, in every paragraph, about virtually every level of existence. " "Tom Lavoie, "Shelf Awareness"
"A nonfiction collection celebrates the centennial of Saul Bellow's (1915-2005) birth. Nobel Prize winner Bellow was a prolific writer of nonfiction: essays, reviews, interviews, talks and memoirs. Organized by decade, the 57 pieces in this volume, edited by Taylor ("Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay," 2012, etc.), trace both Bellow's writing career and his outspoken opinions on politics, literature and intellectual life in America during the second half of the 20th century. After publishing "Dangling Man" (1944) and "The Victim" (1947), "two very correct books" that he thought would establish his credentials as a novelist, Bellow won his first National Book Award in 1954 for "a speculative biography," "The Adventures of Augie March." Critical acclaim for that novel established his reputation; many more prestigious awards followed, as did opportunities to publish his views. Some of the most interesting pieces here are autobiographical. Born in Canada to Russian immigrants, growing up in Depression-era Chicago, Bellow knew early in his life that he wanted to be a writer. "I felt that I was born to be a performing and interpretive creature," he wrote, "that I was meant to take part in a peculiar, exalted game." As a young man, he looked up to such critics as Edmund Wilson, who supported him for a Guggenheim Fellowship, but by 1975, he had changed his mind dramatically: "Critics use strength gathered from the past to pummel the present," he announced scornfully. Nevertheless, Bellow found himself in a critic's role throughout his career, deriding novelists who were didactic and those more interested in being intellectual over telling a good story. He also bristled at being categorized as a Jewish writer: "I was a Jew and an American and a writer and I believed that by being described as a Jewish writer' I was being shunted to a siding." This comprehensive collection illuminates Bellow's sense of his own identity and his changing world." "Kirkus Reviews
" The acclaimed novels and short fiction published during Bellow s lifetime stand on their own, but these dozens of snapshots offer insight into the mind of a contemporary master, reminding readers anew of the formidable breadth and depth of the author s erudition and his unceasing, uncompromising passion for literature. Even a decade after his death, this collection illuminates Bellow s continued relevance and confirms his standing as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. "Library Journal""
" Praise for SAUL BELLOW: LETTERS, edited by Benjamin Taylor
***Selected by Michiko Kakutani of "The New York Times "as a Top Ten Pick of 2010***
***Selected by Jonathan Yardley of "The Washington Post "as a Best of 2010***
"It comes as no surprise to find that the greatest novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed." Philip Roth
"In the "Letters," as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain level and that level is stratospheric." Nathan Englander
"Magnificent . . . The man is all here in this book, in his stunning, almost baffling plentitude. . . . Taylor has selected and edited and annotated these letters with exquisite judgment and care. This is an elegantissimo book. Our literature's debt to Taylor . . . is considerable." Leon Wieseltier, "The New York Times Book Review"
"Masterfully edited."" Vanity Fair"
"Arresting, seizing the reader by the lapels and refusing to let go . . . Bellow is a gifted and emotionally voluble letter writer. The Bellow that floats to the surface in this volume is a close spiritual relative of the heroes who populate his fiction." Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times""

Praise for THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT, edited by Benjamin Taylor:

A New York Times Editor's Choice

"Rare are the novelists who write nonfiction comparable in strength to their fiction. Now that the bulk of his nonfiction has been drawn together from where the pieces first appeared separately, one sees that, like Henry James and John Updike, the great Saul Bellow was no less the master of the one genre than the other. This book overwhelms one like any artistic treasure newly discovered. When it came to wondrous lucidity in the service of an uncanny literary empathy--to a steady downpour of intelligence--to a direct contact with reality--to a sensibility attuned to the contradictions and the incongruities--he was unrivaled. Like the book of Bellow's correspondence collected several years back by Benjamin Taylor--the same intrepid editor who is the harvester here--There Is Simply Too Much to Think About further extends our sense of Bellow's extremely humane way of experiencing books, people, events, and places. One witnesses his excited mind, in a molten state, running over." -- Philip Roth

"Magnificent. . . There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is not merely a complement to Bellow's fiction. It is an intimate portrait of Bellow's defiant, irascible mind, and a milestone of twentieth-century criticism. . . The collection offers a triumphant overabundance of riches--which is exactly why we read Bellow in the first place." -The New York Review of Books

"There is wide-open writing here about Chicago, [Bellow's] hometown, and about topics like con men, terrorism, Paris and Vermont, writers like Ralph Ellison and J.D. Salinger and the idiocies of certain critics and scholars. . . When he is swinging freely, out in the fresh air, Bellow pops both long drives and birdies like Arnold Palmer on a crisp Sunday morning. There is no finer fedora to climb beneath." -- Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"As I read There Is Simply Too Much to Think About I was reminded of why I taught Bellow in the first place, and perhaps why he won the Nobel Prize over other potential Nobel winners like Philip Roth or Norman Mailer: The man can write American English like no one else." -- Chicago Tribune

"[There Is Simply Too Much to Think About] sits handsomely next to Bellow's collected letters from 2010. . . Benjamin Taylor deserves our gratitude for assembling two extraordinary collections." -- The Wall Street Journal

"This rich . . . collection of Bellow's reviews, essays, speeches, and interviews illuminate his lifelong exploration of what it means to be an American, a Jew, and a writer. As assembled by Taylor, the pieces succeed in showing that Bellow's calling was, in the novelist's own words, 'not to preach but to relate.'" -- Publishers Weekly

"In this splendid volume, Bellow does indeed give us much to think about. . . " -- Associated Press

"A provocative and revealing glimpse inside [Bellow's] mind . . . For readers who want to engage with one of the great writers of the 20th century, [There is Simply Too Much to Think About] is nothing short of a literary feast." -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune

." . .There Is Simply Too Much to Think About provides us with a fine portrait of the artist who, in David Eggers's words, could remind you, in every paragraph, about virtually every level of existence.'" -- Tom Lavoie, Shelf Awareness

"A nonfiction collection celebrates the centennial of Saul Bellow's (1915-2005) birth. Nobel Prize winner Bellow was a prolific writer of nonfiction: essays, reviews, interviews, talks and memoirs. Organized by decade, the 57 pieces in this volume, edited by Taylor (Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay, 2012, etc.), trace both Bellow's writing career and his outspoken opinions on politics, literature and intellectual life in America during the second half of the 20th century. After publishing Dangling Man (1944) and The Victim (1947), "two very correct books" that he thought would establish his credentials as a novelist, Bellow won his first National Book Award in 1954 for "a speculative biography," The Adventures of Augie March. Critical acclaim for that novel established his reputation; many more prestigious awards followed, as did opportunities to publish his views. Some of the most interesting pieces here are autobiographical. Born in Canada to Russian immigrants, growing up in Depression-era Chicago, Bellow knew early in his life that he wanted to be a writer. "I felt that I was born to be a performing and interpretive creature," he wrote, "that I was meant to take part in a peculiar, exalted game." As a young man, he looked up to such critics as Edmund Wilson, who supported him for a Guggenheim Fellowship, but by 1975, he had changed his mind dramatically: "Critics use strength gathered from the past to pummel the present," he announced scornfully. Nevertheless, Bellow found himself in a critic's role throughout his career, deriding novelists who were didactic and those more interested in being intellectual over telling a good story. He also bristled at being categorized as a Jewish writer: "I was a Jew and an American and a writer and I believed that by being described as a 'Jewish writer' I was being shunted to a siding." This comprehensive collection illuminates Bellow's sense of his own identity and his changing world." --Kirkus Reviews

"The acclaimed novels and short fiction published during Bellow's lifetime stand on their own, but these dozens of snapshots offer insight into the mind of a contemporary master, reminding readers anew of the formidable breadth and depth of the author's erudition and his unceasing, uncompromising passion for literature. Even a decade after his death, this collection illuminates Bellow's continued relevance and confirms his standing as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century." -- Library Journal

Praise for SAUL BELLOW: LETTERS, edited by Benjamin Taylor

***Selected by Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times as a Top Ten Pick of 2010***
***Selected by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post as a Best of 2010***

"It comes as no surprise to find that the greatest novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed." --Philip Roth

"In the Letters, as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain level--and that level is stratospheric." --Nathan Englander

"Magnificent . . . The man is all here in this book, in his stunning, almost baffling plentitude. . . . Taylor has selected and edited and annotated these letters with exquisite judgment and care. This is an elegantissimo book. Our literature's debt to Taylor . . . is considerable." --Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review

"Masterfully edited." --Vanity Fair

"Arresting, seizing the reader by the lapels and refusing to let go . . . Bellow is a gifted and emotionally voluble letter writer. The Bellow that floats to the surface in this volume is a close spiritual relative of the heroes who populate his fiction." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Bellow’s nonfiction has the same strengths as his stories and novels: a dynamic responsiveness to character, place and time (or era) . . . And you wonder—what other highbrow writer, or indeed lowbrow writer has such a reflexive grasp of the street, the machine, the law courts, the rackets?” —Martin Amis, The New York Times Book Review

The year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellow’s birth, the tenth anniversary of his death, and the publication of Zachary Leader’s much anticipated biography. Bellow, a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the only novelist to receive three National Book awards, has long been regarded as one of America’s most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of the acclaimed Saul Bellow: Letters, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer.

Arranged chronologically, this literary time capsule displays the full extent of Bellow’s nonfiction, including criticism, interviews, speeches, and other reflections, tracing his career from his initial success as a novelist until the end of his life. Bringing together six classic pieces with an abundance of previously uncollected material, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is a powerful reminder not only of Bellow’s genius but also of his enduring place in the western canon and is sure to be widely reviewed and talked about for years to come.