
Searching for Schindler, by Thomas Keneally
Which would you rather read, The Great Gatsby or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s day-by-day account of the whisky he drank and the cigarettes he smoked while writing it? La Comédie humaine or a list of the cups of coffee Balzac downed, between midnight and sunrise, while putting all of those words down on paper? Barchester Towers or Trollope’s fond recollections of the time he spent in composition (wake up at 5:30, write until 8:30, leave for the post office, go home.

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