Books by Ross Simonini
Always Apprentices: The Believer magazine Presents Twenty-Two Conversations Between Writers
by Sheila Heti, Vendela Vida, Ross Simonini
Always Apprentices collects five years of intimate, wide-ranging conversations with many of today’s most prominent writers, taken from the pages of the Believer. The participants don’t limit themselves to issues of writing and craft, but instead offer unfettered exchanges on a wide range of topicsfrom what it means to be a consumer to whether or not to kill a deer, from how we get to know each other to walking while inebriated. The interviews feature the serious-yet-casual Believer approach to the often staid interview format. For example, Sheila Heti asks Mary Gaitskill, If you go into a room or go to a party, is there a basic disposition you have toward humans going through the world?” Elsewhere, Colum McCann begins his conversation with Aleksandar Hemon by asking, What are we doing here? Why aren’t we in a pub?” Other interviews include Don DeLillo talking with Bret Easton Ellis; Joan Didion talking with Vendela Vida; and Barry Hannah talking with Wells Tower.
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Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews
by Vendela Vida, Ross Simonini
Believer Books collects 35 interviews with some of today's most influential musicians and includes such conversational treasures as Björk on e.e. cummings, Lucinda Williams on writing about sex, Trey Anastasio on improvisation games, M.I.A. on the power of the internet, and Jack White on upholstering a couch. The interviews are conducted in The Believer magazine's intimate, casual, long-form style, and while they focus on the musiccreating it, playing it, touring it, living with itthey never hesitate to explore the subjects' other passions. This collection is perfect for fans, lovers of the interview format, cultural aficionados, and aspiring polymaths.
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The Book of Formation
This debut novel—told in interviews—spans 20 years in the rise and fall of the charismatic leader of a seductive self-help movement.
In the 1990s, a talk show host leads the "personality movement," an integrative approach to radical self-transformation. Mayah, the movement's architect and celebrity advocate, adopts a curious, wild child named Masha Isle. A guinea-pig for the movement, and the key to its future, Isle is the subject of the eight interviews that comprise this book.
As the interviewer's objectivity disintegrates—even as the movement's legitimacy becomes increasingly suspect—he becomes obsessed with Masha. And all of that is thrown into question when tragedy strikes.
The stunning debut of a new literary talent, and a fascinating take on the cult of personality: about celebrities need to destroy and recreate themselves to stay relevant, public personalities coming to belong to everyone, and about our need to see everyone as a kind of celebrity.
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