Comments on: Looking for books set up as dialogues or conversations.

Question: Looking for books set up as dialogues or conversations.

JoannaC — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:59:52 -0800

Looking for books which are structed as conversations or debates between two or more people on interesting, educational subjects.

Just finished 'This is Not the End of the Book' by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere, and loved it. These two educated, erudite men debated books, literature, history and so on in a witty yet educational way. They covered so many topics, but the book was not (imho) boring or tedious to read.

What I especially liked about it was that I feel they covered some pretty well-worn topics, but since they are both so smart and educated, they actually had meaningful stuff to say that wasn't just punditry. And when there were diversions, they were diversions which enlightened, entertained and gave me a list of subjects to learn more about.

And I loved the structure of it being set up like a conversation, where the editor would posit a question and both authors would sound off, respond to each other and carry on this great dialogue. It was a fun way to read.

So...more like this?

By: Lutoslawski

Lutoslawski — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:09:50 -0800

Well, Plato certainly comes to mind.

By: box

box — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:14:54 -0800

And, right up there with Plato, there's Michael Ian Black and Meghan McCain's America, You Sexy Bitch.

By: MonkeyToes

MonkeyToes — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:18:48 -0800

Perhaps not on target but in a similar spirit: "Sophie's World," an epistolary philosophy course/mystery.

By: Rustic Etruscan

Rustic Etruscan — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:26:02 -0800

Public Enemies may be up your alley. It's a correspondence between Michel Houllebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy. I haven't read it. It seems to focus more on the writers' public lives than the Eco/Carrière book does.

By: Fichereader

Fichereader — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:47:02 -0800

C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. The topics might be far afield, but it is a creative use of the form.

By: bradbane

bradbane — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:54:59 -0800

Ishamael by Daniel Quinn is really good, he took the teacher-student format from Plato.

By: d. z. wang

d. z. wang — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:54:06 -0800

If you're interested in programming, "Coders At Work" is a series of interviews---conversations, really---between Peter Siebel and various Great Men of CS.

If you're into old physics, Two World Systems is a fake dialogue (trialogue?) between three personas, eventually explaining Galilean astronomy.

By: book 'em dano

book 'em dano — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:16:19 -0800

Like Shaking Hands With God, featuring Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer.

By: yasaman

yasaman — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:47:05 -0800

Anathem by Neal Stephenson is a great SF adventure and coming of age story, but it also happens to feature multiple dialogues on philosophy.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:50:52 -0800

This is a movie, but My Dinner With Andre.

By: Someone Else's Story

Someone Else's Story — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:33:34 -0800

If you're musically inclined at all, Fux's Gradus Ad Parnassum is a seminal work on harmony and counterpoint that has influenced Western music since 1725. Large sections of it are presented as a dialogue between student and master; I found what I read of it rather delightful, and have long meant to track down the rest. (So thank you for bringing it to mind - hopefully my library has a copy!)

By: LarryC

LarryC — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:37:44 -0800

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis is the conclusion of a trilogy and consist largely (if my 20-year-old memory is right) of a debate between two characters concerning good and evil.

By: jojobobo

jojobobo — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:08:06 -0800

I can't remember it all that well but I think Ian McEwan's Solar kind of does this, and Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being also sort of does this, although it's the narrator taking on themselves rather than another character, mostly.

By: jojobobo

jojobobo — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:08:50 -0800

Also- non books version, The West Wing does exactly this on tv.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:26:20 -0800

Later in her career Jane Jacobs wrote several books in dialogue format. Here zompist reviews her. And David Warsh says:

Jacobs was nearly 75 when she began Systems of Survival. The immense success of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) was well in the past; so were the frustrations of her more analytical The Economy of Cities (1969) and the disappointment at the reception of Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984). She had nothing more to prove, so she wrote Systems in a manner that was more congenial to her — as a dialogue among half a dozen friends from different walks of life who meet on fourteen occasions to discuss various threats to the prevailing "great web of trust in the honesty of business." It contains some of her most original and provocative thinking. But Systems is not easy to digest, and the book has not yet gained the audience it deserves.

"This is no novel," says the fictional Armbruster near the beginning. He is a publisher who convenes the sessions. "This is a tradition older than the novel. Dialogue – didactic talking heads, if you will – goes back to Plato and possibly to the dawn of consciousness about right and wrong, whatever that was. The form – disagreements, speculations, second thoughts, questions, answers, amended answers – it's suited to the problematic subject matter. Let's give it a try? What harm can it do?"

You can also find this format in much earlier writing: Galileo and Fontenelle are two I've read and liked (though not in their online forms; I read Stillman Drake's Galileo translations and H.A. Hargreaves' version of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds).

By: cthuljew

cthuljew — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 01:21:14 -0800

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid consists of interspersed chapters of prose text covering everything from computer science to biology to consciousness, and Socratic diagolues between Achilles and Mr. Tortoise which relate allegorically to the following chapter. Aside from happening to have dialogues, it is also one of the best books ever written.

By: JoannaC

JoannaC — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:14:57 -0800

'America, You Sexy Bitch' looks like just the thing I am looking for. And less than 3 bucks in the Kindle store! Thanks.

By: 1367

1367 — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:43:11 -0800

Trialogues from the Edge of the West, featuring Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna & Rupert Sheldrake will either be your cup of tea, or not. But it definitely fits your request, and it is a fascinating read!

By: taltalim

taltalim — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:42:51 -0800

1001 Nights

By: Rustic Etruscan

Rustic Etruscan — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:55:42 -0800

You might also like the correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson. The correspondence between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, too.