Not a bad list

Here are the profiles that a quick prod round the archives found, not really in chronological order.

Eva Hoffman
Mary Midgley
Stewart Brand
Tam Dalyell
Brian Aldiss
Steve Rose
Evelyn Fox Keller
Bob Conquest
Elizabeth Jane Howard
Redmond O’Hanlon
John Sulston
Robert Silvers
Dan Dennett
Mary Warnock
Roy Foster
Oliver Sacks
John Brockman
Robert Trivers

They really were interesting people to talk to, and to read. There were three or four people who never talked to me, and whom I really wanted to do — Sybille Bedford booked a restaurant then changed her mind; Richard Lewontin and Bernard Lewis considered letters for months and then declined my offer. Larry McMurtry waited until I had booked (and the Guardian had paid for) a flight to Texas before deciding he had better things to do.

Benny Morris, whom I liked and admired, was never published. Too much politics. A couple of other ones fell by the wayside for other reasons.

What’s sad is that these were proper interviews, for which I would prepare by reading, and thinking about, everything I could get my hands on of the authors, and not just whatever their publishers wanted plugged that month. I would talk to friends from their childhoods. I tried to avoid quote mines and even clippings, and to get the quotes freshly. I’m really delighted to have been able to do all that work. The photographs that Eamonn McCabe did were fantastic, too.

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4 Responses to Not a bad list

  1. Robert Nowell says:

    Yes, they were good. Is any publisher wise or rash enough (or both) to collect them in book form?

  2. Andy says:

    Nice one; I’ll enjoy those. Did you know that “Danny Dennett” goes brilliantly to the tune of “Woolly Bully”?

  3. Rupert says:

    The book idea is good… and while there may be no other European newspaper which would give the series a home, might there be a chance if you schlepped this list over to the NYRB or its various spiritual siblings?

  4. Any chance of putting the Benny Morris one up somewhere?

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