I Think Youre Totally Wrong, David Shields
I Think Youre Totally Wrong, David Shields
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I Think You're Totally Wrong
A Quarrel

Author: David Shields, Caleb Powell

Narrator: Luis Moreno, Jonathan Todd Ross

Unabridged: 5 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 01/06/2015


Synopsis

A debate, nearly to the death, about life and art, cocktails included. And a soon-to-be major motion picture from James Franco! Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life (he' s a stay-at-home dad to three young girls), whereas his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human being, but he has overcommitted to art. Shields and Powell spend four days together in a cabin in the Cascade Mountains, playing chess, shooting hoops, hiking to lakes and an abandoned mine; they rewatch My Dinner with AndrE, Sideways, and The Trip, relax in a hot tub, and talk about everything they can think of in the name of exploring and debating their central question: life and/or art. The relationship-- and the balance of power-- between Shields and Powell is in constant flux, as two egos try to undermine each other, two personalities overlap and collapse. This book seeks to demolish the Q&A format; it also seeks to confound, as much as possible, the divisions between " reality" and " fiction," between " life" and " art." There are no teachers or students, no interviewers or interviewees, no masters in the universe, only a chasm of uncertainty. David Shields is the author of 16 books, including The Thing About Life Is That One Day You' ll Be Dead and Salinger, both NYT bestsellers; Reality Hunger; How Literature Saved My Life; and Black Planet. He lives with his wife and daughter in Seattle, where he is the Miliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington. Caleb Powell, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, has played bass in a band, worked construction, and spent ten years teaching ESL and studying foreign languages on six continents. He' s published stories and essays in Descant, Post Road and Zyzzyva. He' s now a stay-at-home father in Seattle.

About David Shields

David Shields is the author of fifteen books, including the New York Times bestseller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead; Reality Hunger, named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications; and Black Planet, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has been translated into twenty languages.


Reviews

This is an interesting discussion between two writers (one very successful, one not so much) in which they hope to battle to discover the true meaning of life and art (okay, that's an overstatement). It's a fast read with plenty of pseudo-insight, as well as a few good jokes (and even more bad ones)......more

Goodreads review by Andrews

This is not a four-star book, but I enjoyed it more than many books that deserve better. Probably helps to be a Washington native, UW grad, Mariners and Huskies football fan (the announcers on page 194, I know those guys!). Somehow (thankfully, I feel) I avoided David Shields while I was getting my E......more

Goodreads review by Kent

I thoroughly enjoyed and devoured this book. I've read some reviews about how pretentious and assumptive to simply put a conversation between two guys out as a book, but bottom line, it was fun to see the two guys interact and converse. The promised philosophical clash never really seems to develop......more