I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of transcribed interviews. I especially liked the one conducted by Bill Moyers in 1990 but then both men in that conversation obviously enjoyed each other's intelligence and were obviously comfortable in shared beliefs. I find that I have political beliefs very similar to those men, and Mr. Doctorow in particular. Here's a couple of lines from the interview conducted by Richard Trenner in 1982 in response to a question about what President Reagan appears to represent: "...It turns out after all we were not supposed to be just a nation, but a confederacy of stupid murderous gluttons. ......The religious fundamentalists and the political right have made explosive contact, and in light of their conjunction it says Armageddon." And again in Winifred Farrant Bevilacqua's 1988 Budapest interview, after she asked him to comment on the situation of the writer in the West and in other parts of the world, he said this: "America is generally an anti-intellectual country and the literary life occupies the attention of a very small number of people ...... which is not true in other countries of the world." These statements, among many others, resonated strongly with me. I don't think anything has changed and I don't think it ever will - despite Oprah Winfrey's efforts to get more people to read and read. Also - we have been to war several times post Reagan and we learn little from the experiences. ( )