Robert Grudin is a writer and philosopher, and the author of the metafictional novel Book, as well as Mighty Opposites Shakespeare and Renaissance Contrariety, The Grace of Great Things Creativity and Innovation, On Dialogue An Essay in Free Thought, Time and the Art of Living, The Most Amazing Thing, and American Vulgar The Politics of Manipulation Versus the Culture of Awareness. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley and received a Guggenheim Fellowship.