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pajge's review against another edition
3.5
i liked it. the pitfall of reviewing these things is how different each piece is, like that first essay i couldn’t finish, it was so pretentious and forcibly inaccessible, just humble-bragging. and there were others i didn’t fully get through, but some great ones, too, notably by brian doyle, jonathen franzen, ted kooser, e.j levy, david masello, cathleen schine, david sedaris, and david foster wallace. as promised, it was full of great essays
library_ann's review against another edition
5.0
I don't like or finish every single essay, but I love being exposed to such a variety of writing from a variety of sources.
jessrock's review against another edition
3.0
I saw this on a display rack at the library, Susan Orlean's name caught my eye because I really liked [b:The Orchid Thief|228345|The Orchid Thief A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)|Susan Orlean|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255578155s/228345.jpg|911511], and there turned out to be several writers in the collection whose names I recognized. I particularly wanted to read the Oliver Sacks essay, and was interested to check out the selections from David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, David Sedaris, and a few others. I enjoyed reading the collection, but it didn't really introduce me to any new writers I got especially excited about, and I was disappointed to find that the Oliver Sacks essay was just another revisitation of the [b:Awakenings|14456|Awakenings|Oliver Sacks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166606317s/14456.jpg|2755549] story of the post-encephalitic patients, with a slightly different angle (people's experience of time). David Foster Wallace's (predictably overlong and annotated) essay from Gourmet magazine may have been the most interesting one in spite of its length - he set out to review a lobster festival in Maine and ended up reflecting on animals' experience of pain and the need for the sort of people who read Gourmet magazine to reflect on the pain that goes into the food they eat. He doesn't make any judgment calls, just presents his research about what lobsters and other animals experience as they're boiled alive or otherwise killed, which I thought was a pretty interesting angle given the magazine it was published in. Overall, I don't regret reading this collection of essays, but there wasn't much that was exceptional about it, and it's not really worth seeking out to read when there are so many better books of essays out there.
pranavmutatkar's review against another edition
4.0
Hard to judge an essay collection, but overall pretty strong pieces in here. Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle blew me away, a short piece that packed a lot of heart that most essays find difficult to do. I also really enjoyed Sea of Information by Andrea Barrett and Mastering the Art of French Cooking by E.J. Levy. Oliver Sacks was good and Sedaris good in his light, amusing way especially in this short of a piece.
David Foster Wallace had one of his great short stories in here which of course can't be understated. They were a couple other interesting ones, but those are the ones that really stood out. I would recommend you peruse this if you are interested in essays.
David Foster Wallace had one of his great short stories in here which of course can't be understated. They were a couple other interesting ones, but those are the ones that really stood out. I would recommend you peruse this if you are interested in essays.
livingpalm1's review
2.0
The collection from 2005 included only a few titles I didn't really enjoy, a few I'd only consider mildly enjoyable and a few I wish I could memorize because the words made me so happy. A few authors I'd read before -- Jonathan Franzen, David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace. Many I had not -- Andrea Barrett, Ian Frazier, Edward Hoagland, Ted Kooser and more. As it turns out, most of my favorite essays came to me from previously unknown writers.
See my favorite excerpt at my full review here: http://blog.thissacramentallife.com/2013/04/what-im-into-lately-march-2013.html
See my favorite excerpt at my full review here: http://blog.thissacramentallife.com/2013/04/what-im-into-lately-march-2013.html
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