The David Foster Wallace Reader
Book - 2014
"Where do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here--with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range of great writers, critics, and those who worked with him most closely. This volume presents his most dazzling, funniest, and most heartbreaking work--essays like his famous cruise-ship piece, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," excerpts from his novels The Broom of the System, Infinite Jest, and The Pale King, and legendary stories like "The Depressed Person." Wallace's explorations of morality, self-consciousness, addiction, sports, love, and the many other subjects that occupied him are represented here in both fict...ion and nonfiction. Collected for the first time are Wallace's first published story, "The View from Planet Trillaphon as Seen In Relation to the Bad Thing" and a selection of his work as a writing instructor, including reading lists, grammar guides, and general guidelines for his students. A dozen writers and critics, including Hari Kunzru, Anne Fadiman, and Nam Le, add afterwords to favorite pieces, expanding our appreciation of the unique pleasures of Wallace's writing. The result is an astonishing volume that shows the breadth and range of "one of America's most daring and talented writers" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) whose work was full of humor, insight, and beauty"--
- Subjects
- Published
-
New York :
Little, Brown and Company
2014.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition
- Physical Description
- x, 963 pages ; 24 cm
- ISBN
- 9780316182393
- Introduction
- Fiction
- "The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad thing" (1984) Afterword
- The Broom of the System (1987)
- 1
- 5 /a/
- 11 /c/
- Afterword
- Girl with Curious Hair (1989)
- "Little Expressionless Animals"
- Afterword
- "My Appearance"
- Infinite Jest (1996)
- Year of Glad
- Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
- "In the eighth..."
- Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
- Autumn-Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
- As of Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
- Winter B.S. 1960-Tucson Az
- "Here is how..."
- "But there's this..."
- "If, by the..."
- "The bathroom has..."
- 14 November
- 8 November
- Winter, B.S. 1963, Sepulveda CA
- "It is starting..."
- "As at all..."
- "And re Ennet..."
- "Joelle used to..."
- 11 November
- Afterword
- "The ceiling was..."
- Notes and Errata
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)
- "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life"
- "B.I. #14"
- "B.I. #40"
- "Forever Overhead"
- "The Depressed Person"
- Oblivion (2004)
- "Good Old Neon"
- "Incarnations of Burned Children"
- Afterword
- "The Suffering Channel"
- The Pale King (2011)
- §1
- §5
- §6
- §8
- §9
- §33
- §36
- Afterword
- Teaching Materials
- Introduction
- English 64A
- First-Day Pop Quiz
- Student Data Sheet
- English 170R, Spring 2003
- Course Syllabus
- Student Info Sheet
- Specs and Guidelines for Peer-Review Missive
- English 183A, Fall 2004
- Guidelines for Writing Helpful Letters of Response to Colleagues' Stories
- English 183D, Spring 2008
- Syllabus
- Student Data Sheet
- English 183A, Your Liberal-Arts $ At Work
- 16 October 2002
- 30 October 2002
- 13 November 2002
- 6 October 2004
- 1 December 2004
- Nonfiction
- "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley" (1990)
- Afterword
- "E Unibus Pluram" (1990)
- Afterword
- "Getting Away from Already Pretty Much Being Away from It All" (1993)
- Afterword
- "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (1995)
- "The Nature of the Fun" (1998)
- "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed" (1999)
- "Authority and American Usage" (1999)
- "The View from Mrs. Thompson's" (2001)
- "Consider the Lobster" (2004)
- Afterword
- "Federer Both Flesh and Not" (2006)
- Afterword
- About the Contributors
- Copyright Acknowledgments
