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	<author id="4339">
  <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
  <fans-count type="integer">183</fans-count>
  <followers-count type="integer">0</followers-count>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1226816413p5/4339.jpg</image_url>
  <about><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. &quot;I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today,&quot; he once said, &quot;of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it.&quot; He wanted to write &quot;stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live.&quot; Readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style: his comedy, his brilliance, his humaneness.

His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. Wallace was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony-eyed in love with him. He published a thousand-page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive in the contemporary world, accepted a special chair at California's Pomona College to teach writing, married, published another book and, last month, hanged himself at age 46.

-excerpt from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23638511/the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Lost Years &amp; Last Days of David Foster Wallace&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Also see the related interview with the writer of the piece above:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23638939/getting_to_know_david_foster_wallace?source=music_news_rssfeed&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Getting to Know David Foster Wallace&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;]]></about>    <gender>male</gender>  <hometown>Ithaca, New York</hometown>  <born_at>02/21/1962</born_at>  <died_at>09/12/2008</died_at>  
  
  
  <books>
        <book id="6759">
  <title><![CDATA[Infinite Jest: A Novel]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4460</ratings_count>
  <published>1996</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="6748">
  <title><![CDATA[A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>4.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3179</ratings_count>
  <published>1998</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="6751">
  <title><![CDATA[Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>4.11</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>2855</ratings_count>
  <published>2005</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="6753">
  <title><![CDATA[Brief Interviews with Hideous Men]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.75</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>2034</ratings_count>
  <published>1999</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="45760">
  <title><![CDATA[Girl With Curious Hair]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.79</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>1583</ratings_count>
  <published>1988</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="6750">
  <title><![CDATA[The Broom of the System]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.73</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>1565</ratings_count>
  <published>1987</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="6749">
  <title><![CDATA[Oblivion: Stories]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.85</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>1260</ratings_count>
  <published>2004</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="5986375">
  <title><![CDATA[This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>4.36</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>368</ratings_count>
  <published>2009</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="821914">
  <title><![CDATA[Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.53</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>448</ratings_count>
  <published>2003</published>  
  
</book>
        <book id="739509">
  <title><![CDATA[The Best American Essays 2007]]></title>
  <authors>
    <author>
      <name><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4339.David_Foster_Wallace]]></link>
    </author>
        <author>
      <name><![CDATA[Robert Atwan]]></name>
      <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1395080]]></link>
    </author>
      </authors>
  <average_rating>3.73</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>397</ratings_count>
  <published>2007</published>  
  
</book>
      </books>
</author>
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