Who would you go see? (Who makes you crazy?)

I would give my lifeblood to see GW Bush speak without a script.

Walker Percy would make me writhe in ecstasy.

>I would give my lifeblood to see GW Bush speak without a script.

W/out a script, it usually goes a little something like:

"There's an old...saying in Tennessee...I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says Fool me once...(3 second pause)... Shame on...(4 second pause)...Shame on you....(6 second pause)...Fool me...Can't get fooled again." --George W. Bush to Nashville, Tennessee audience, Sept. 17, 2002, MSNBC-TV --Politex, Sept. 17, 2002, 10 PM

Sherman Alexie. I heard him give a "reading" (he doesn't read) last fall and thought I was going to have to be hospitalized when it was over. anybody else here gone to see him? it was like heroine. I have the ticket stub taped to the wall over my monitor.

heroine? jeez o pete! heroin!
I'm spelling like g.w. bush w/out a script.

I'd have crawled on my hands and knees to hear Annie Dillard. Fortunately I didn't have to that time, but if she came AGAIN, ...well, who knows? She shook my very hand.... I don't know if she still makes public appearances. I kinda think not.

Can they be dead? Or are we not playing Magical Realism (realism? What the hell is realistic about people coming back to life? Nothing, that's what)?

If they can be dead, then I choose George Orwell. Because I reckon he'd be funny as well as really really clever and brilliant and interesting.

No, wait, Enid Blyton. I would just love to hear her talk. I don't know why.

If they have to be alive then I choose Stephen King. Just because he's really interesting when he talks about his process and so forth.

JD Salinger

hey, I inspired Vermont Girl?

I sell my first writing, get to see David Sedaris, AND I inspire Vermont Girl? I swear my stars and planets have realigned.

Dead? James Herriot or Agatha Christie.

Living?
David Sedaris or any of the This American Life gang.

Umberto Eco. He came and did a reading where I work and of course I was out of town on that day. He did sign a book for me though.

Enid Blyton! Yay! I saw Adrienne Rich read several years ago - the entire room was riveted. She was truly amazing (and small and fragile, but once she opened her mouth...) I get the shivers just thinking about it.
if it's dead people, then, of course, I would want to see Dylan Thomas - and have a FAP with him as well.

God, please, don't start me fantasizing about all the dead writers I never got to thank... Oscar Wilde of COURSE. Flaubert. Hm... living? I'd love to see Amelie Nothomb in person. But she probably lives in a tiny cottage high atop a Belgian hill, near a village whose children whisper about the spooky sorciere.

Or maybe she's back in Tokyo.

Philip Roth. Does anyone know if he tours for his books anymore?

Joseph Heller and Vladimir Nabakov if they were alive.
In the living ones i guess i will go see Stephen King.

I saw Michael Chabon a couple years ago and he was MARVELOUS. Best "reading with commentary" I'd been to, probably ever.

And I'm also with Vermont Girl about Neil Gaiman. I was able to drive him around San Jose last time he was in town, and even though he was dead sick, it was a great day. I think that's my claim to fame. I've had Neil Gaiman in my car.

Dead? do i get to go to them or do they have to come to me? If I could go to them, lets say Hemingway in Paris in a cafe in the latin quarter in the early twenties, hopefully with some of the other members of the Lost generation present. I would bring the Absinthe. That would be an interesting way to spend an evening.

Living hmmmmm....

Neal Stephenson because I am certain I would be entertained and learn a lot. Same with Neil Gaiman. Orhan Pamuk. Barry Hughart so i could plead my case for more Master Li and Number Ten Ox stories.

Borges! Along the lines of the surreal disccusion he had with Paul Theroux in The Old Patagonian Express.

Hmm, Cervantes too. Get Borges and Cervantes in the same room and talk about Pierre Menard. What would the Spaniard make of it?

Living, Sara Wheeler, would love to travel with her.

Mmmm, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (spanish guy, he wrote 'Shadow of the Wind' which is the most amazing book in the world!). Oh wait <fast forward to the melbourne writers festival> i do get to meet him, he's doing a booksigning in my bookshop!!!!!

OOOoooo!

Now I want to change mine.

Dead definitely Oscar Wilde.

I would drop EVERYTHING to see Sam Shepard. EVERYTHING

I was pretty happy when Bernadette Mayer read in Seattle. I went up for that reading, and it was pretty great. I'd love to meet Samuel Delany again, but I guess I'm pretty lucky to have met him the once. I should probably come up with someone who I haven't met. Oh! I'd really really love to see Christian Bök read! Damn, that would be kick-ass.

Limited to living authors, off the top of my head:

Kurt Vonnegut
William Kennedy
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Milan Kundera
J.D. Salinger
Thomas Pynchon
Douglas Adams
...maybe Lorrie Moore, William T. Vollmann, Mary Gaitskill, a few others.

I have seen Sherman Alexie (who to my great disappointment and surprise, delivered an annoying lecture/stand-up routine), Jeffrey Eugenides, Ray Bradbury, Amy Tan (accident, I was shopping), Lynda Barry, Anthony Swofford, Michael Moore (just a signing), Al Franken (in '99 when he was promoting Why Not Me? and trying to distance himself from his Stuart Smalley persona), and numerous lesser known writers.

Oh yeah:

J.M. Coetzee
Kenzaburo Oe
Haruki Murakami
Gunter Grass
Nick Tosches
Habermas
Derrida

...Gary Snyder (I'll stop now)

I'd drape myself with candybars and chocolate lingerie to go see Steve Almond...

Yet another endorsement for Neil Gaiman... I saw him last summer when he was in Toronto, and it was the best five hours I've ever stood in line for *anything*. The people around me were great, the atmosphere was festive because everyone knew they'd have a chance to meet and chat with him. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I'd also go see Terry Pratchett, who would be hilarious. And Tanya Huff, just because. Christopher Moore, Tom Robbins, and Poppy Z. Brite are runners-up.

Um, Ryan, I hate to be the one to tell you about Douglas Adams...

Dead: I was thinking about Sartre, Tolstoy or perhaps Fernando Pessoa(and a couple of dansih writers I´m sure you have never heard of). But I never know what to say to people. Just because I admire their books, dosen´t mean that we got anything to talk about.
In the end I sure I would pick Virginia Woolf, my favorite writer above them all. And I would prefere to go and se her on a day when she was giving a party, so that I could also meet all the other facinating friends from bloomsbury, that I read so much about.

Living: Michael Cunningham. I read the Hours just after it was published and it´s definitely one of the best books I´ve ever read. It´s incredibly intelligent and I´m absolutely facinated with all the many, many lines and links between the characters, Virginia Woolf, Mrs.Dalloway etc.
I´m terribly sorry, that the movie made the hole thing into a stupid, stupid story about Woolf. The movie is great! I don´t blame the people who made the movie. I blame the critics and all the journalists who obviously didn´t understand anything. So all the moviegoers who had never read The Hours and had never read anything by Virginia Woolf really thought that it was all about her. But they were wrong. It WAS about Virginia Woolf, but it was also about so much more.
I have read all the books by Michael Cunningham, but the Hours is far better than any of his books. It is a masterpiece and I really do believe, that he understands Virginia Woolf and her writing to the heart of it.
Since I read The Hours for the first time, I´ve thougt about writing to Cunningham. I would love to tell him how much I love this book.
Yes, I would choose Michael Cunningham. I think we would have very, very much to talk about.

I heard Charles Bukowski read once. And Donald Hall. I still love to go to Leslie Norris readings. Oh, yes, I heard William Stafford a few times! He was great! Wish he was still around....

second Donald Hall. I've only heard him read once, at Old Home Week in Sandwich, New Hampshire a few years ago. when he read "Names of Horses," a man wearing a yellow mackintosh began weeping and took much of the audience down with him.

p.s. hey pepek, would you put up a list of your fifty books on a fifty books thread...?

Um, Ryan, I hate to be the one to tell you about Douglas Adams...

Oh shit...

I heard Salman Rushdie speak, and he was so hilarious and charming. I'd do pretty much anything to see him again. Also, Art Spiegelman. Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, and John Banville.

I was just thinking, 'wait. Isn't Douglas Adams umm...'

Sorry Ryan.