Product Description

Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific authors of our time. When he died in 1992 at the age of seventy-two, he had published more than 470 books in nearly every category of fiction and nonfiction. Asimov was a prodigious correspondent as well as a prolific author. During his professional career he received more than one hundred thousand letters, over ninety thousand of which he answered.

For Asimov's younger brother, veteran newspaperman Stanley Asimov, the creation of Yours, Isaac Asimov was truly a labor of love. Completed before Stanley's death in August 1995, the book is made up of excerpts from one thousand never-before-published letters, each handpicked by Stanley for inclusion in this volume. Arranged by subject and accompanied by Stanley's short, insightful introductions, here are letters to statesmen and scientists, actors and authors, as well as to children, housewives, aspiring writers, and fans the world over. The letters are warm, engaging, reasoned, and occasionally impassioned. Through them all Isaac Asimov's legendary genius, wit, and charm shine through.

And so we have Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters, an intimate glimpse into the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of a great writer and thinker of the modern age. As Stanley Asimov advised, "Read the letters carefully. One of them may have been written to you."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #641564 in Books
• Published on: 1996-11-01
• Released on: 1996-11-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) wrote 470 books on every subject from robots to Shakespeare and an estimated 90,000 letters, hundreds of which are collected here by his brother, an adjunct associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. They are an unalloyed delight. Brought to this country at age three from Russia, Asimov apparently spent his entire youth with his nose in a book and forgot virtually nothing he read. As an adult, writing was his passion, and he regarded anything that kept him away from his desk, including vacations, as an annoyance. He was gregarious and a kind judge of his fellow creatures, with a few exceptions. He despised Ronald Reagan, called creationists "superstitionists" and fought foes of the ERA for many years. He was a New Deal-era liberal and, although he called himself Jewish because of his family background, he was a militant atheist. Because he would not fly, he traveled little but finally visited England, West Africa and California under pressure from his second wife. Particularly entertaining are his limericks, scattered throughout this winning book.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This engaging selection of letters from among the over 45,000 in Asimov's existing correspondence was selected and introduced by his brother, Stanley. The selections, arranged by subject, give the reader a real sense of Asimov as a person, as a writer, and as a raconteur. There is no better description of this book than a sampling of its delights: "My answer to the question, 'Why do you write' is that I write for the same reason I breathe?because if I didn't, I would die." "I am usually amazed (and pleased) at what comes out of the typewriter. Which is why I write so much. I am eager to see what I will say next." "When I was young, my family was too poor to buy books, but library cards were free. From the age of six, I have haunted the library, and the books I read educated me before the schools got their chance." "My appearance of being 'obviously conceited' is entirely a matter of carefully constructed image, like Jack Benny's cheapness. In reality, I am lovably modest and incredibly sweet." I'll bet he was, too. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Denise Johnson, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, Ill.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Stanley Asimov, editor of this volume, is a seasoned journalist as well as the brother of the late science fiction writer, and he brought both professional skill and fraternal affection to the task of making a publishable selection from Isaac's vast correspondence. The result is a manageable helping of letters on practically everything that interested Isaac, which was very nearly everything in the world. A busy man, Isaac replied to his correspondents with plenty of pith, which sometimes became waspish--phrases like "George Orwell and his stupid book" (i.e., 1984) might better have been left in the files. Some of the contents of the letters have already been revealed in Isaac's extensive autobiographical writings, yet the book as a whole adds usefully to our knowledge of a greatly gifted and creative man, one of the most important sf writers of the century and the father of modern popular-science writing. Roland Green