David Mamet in Conversation

""[I]t beats thinking,"" said playwright David Mamet when asked why he writes. Deceptive flippancy abounds in David Mamet in Conversation, in which Westfield State College English professor Leslie Kane assembles 26 interviews with the highly cerebral author of Wag the Dog, Oleanna and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross. The collection, which spans Mamet's 25-year career, includes Village Voice drama critic Ross Wetzsteon's 1976 interview, ""David Mamet: Remember That Name,"" and interviews with Jim Lehrer, the New Yorker's John Lahr, Fresh Air's Terry Gross and PBS's Charlie Rose. In these engaging, amusing conversations, Mamet discusses the dramatist's social responsibility, his return to Judaism and why men and women can't get along. ( Aug. 27)