The demise of letter writing is the cause of widespread lament.
HERE AND NOW: Letters, 2008-2011, by Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee. Faber and Faber, 2013, 248 pp., $27.95 (hardcover)
The mourning, you'd say, is less for the reading or writing of letters than for the care for friendship that they imply. In the course of this curious epistolary exchange, which begins with a meditation on the idea of just that kind of attentive friendship, Paul Auster, 66, and John Coetzee, 73, both declare themselves technophobes — the closest they generally get to the digital age is the fax machine.
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