All summer, I’ve been chipping away at my next book, which is a practical exploration of a single pregnant verse of Scripture: Micah 6:8. He has told you, O mortal, what is good;and what does the LORD require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God? After mulling … Continue reading You can’t think your way out→| joshuamcnall.com
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments, by David Foster Wallace, 4.14, 51,569 ratings, 4,196 reviews. 353 pages, Paperback, First published January 1, 1996. Looking at the reviews for the full book of essays, granted that I borrowed it from the digital library, I decided to just read the one about […]| Silvia Cachia
For many years since reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, I’ve wondered irritably: was David Foster Wallace mocking real people in his essay on the cruise-ship experience? Specifically, this passage stayed with me: “My favorite tablemate is Trudy, whose husband…has given his ticket to Alice, their heavy and extremely well-dressed daughter… every time Alice mentions [her boyfriend Patrick, Trudy] suffers some sort of weird facial tic or grimace where the canine tooth ...| Meta is Murder
IT'S BEEN A COUPLE YEARS since I did one of these roundups, during which time book club has really lifted my reading game, and so the pool of contenders has a lot of depth this year. After much agonising I've winnowed my favourite reads down to a top 10. The list ended up heavy on classics and big names, with fewer underrated or self-published authors—wow, Hemingway is a great read, no kidding—but I think that also tells you something. I've also read quite a bit of contemporary fiction—...| Deep Dish
Almost all my adult life I've been an infovore obsessed with hoovering up all the knowledge. Then a year ago I joined a book club in which non-fiction was strictly prohibited. This is the second-best thing to happen to me in recent memory. I'll say why, and why I don't regret my initial fixation on non-fiction, but first: an invitation to get involved with the book club! It started when my friends Cam, Benny and I discovered we'd all had David Foster Wallace's monstrous Infinite Jest on our r...| Deep Dish
I’ve been on a bit of a Jonathan Franzen bender lately. I frequently write about him on my other site. The kickstart for all this was a book club meeting about Crossroads for which I not only read the book, but also watched and read a dozen or so Franzen interviews. Older and newer interviews.… Read More »| Jan van den Berg
If you read this blog, you know DFW is one of my favorite writers. I even named my book app, in part, after him. So I could be short about String Theory — it’s a absolute pure delight to read — but, of course, I won’t. String Theory is a collection of 5 DFW essays […]| Jan van den Berg