From People Who Know a Thing or Two.
For the Class of 2002, a smart and edgy collection of words to the wise from Spalding, Gray, Fay Weldon, Tom Robbins, Cindy Sherman, Mark Helprin, Dr Laura Schlessinger, William S Burroughs, Richard Meltzer, Gene Wolfe, Bette Davis and dozens more of the most creative and visionary people on the planet.
While reading Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Letters To A Young Poet', at the age of 21, James Harmon was struck by its beauty and intensity. As the black clad, cafe dwelling, cigarette puffing, ironic young artist, he asked himself, "Why can't someone write me letters like that?"
Despite his despondence, Harmon took his own question to heart and wrote a few letters asking for advice. The response was phenomenal. Ten years later, he's been rewarded with a collage of wisdom from major thinkers, social gadflies, underground artists, provocateurs, raconteurs, film auteurs, cyberpunks, academic outlaws, icons, iconoclasts, cranks, visionaries, fashionists, cultural critics and our greatest living poets.
Harmon then collected the thoughts of his surrogate mentors in a book modeled after Rilke's, but with a hip and sardonic edge. The result is 'Take My Advice', a subversively witty book destined for cult status among discerning, critical, and savvy young people around the world. Offering advice from every corner of the cultural universe, this is an inimitable gift to the future.
