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The New Kings of Nonfiction

by Ira Glass (Editor), Mark Bowden, Bill Buford, Malcolm Gladwell, Jack Hitt, Chuck Klosterman, Michael Lewis, James McManus , more...

4.02 · rating details · 2,020 ratings · 440 reviews

A collection of stories-some well known, some more obscure- capturing some of the best storytelling of this golden age of nonfiction.

An anthology of the best new masters of nonfiction storytelling, personally chosen and introduced by Ira Glass, the producer and host of the award-winning public radio program This American Life.

These pieces-on teenage white collar crimin...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published October 2nd 2007 by Riverhead Trade

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Community Reviews

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Oct 10, 2007

Ellen added it

Shelves: want-to-read

I once followed Ira Glass into a Starbucks and let me tell you, he talks like his radio voice all the time. Swoon.

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Feb 03, 2008

Alicia rated it

· review of another edition

A collection of essays hand selected by Ira Glass. Anyone who knows me wishes I would just shut up about Ira Glass already.

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Not surprisingly, this collection of non-fiction essays is amazing. In the introduction, Ira Glass explains his selection process in putting the collection together. It's basically all about journalists who don't shy away from putting themselves in the story. Ira says "I don't see anything wrong with a piece of reporting turning into a fable....moreA collection of essays hand selected by Ira Glass. Anyone who knows me wishes I would just shut up about Ira Glass already.

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Not surprisingly, this collection of non-fiction essays is amazing. In the introduction, Ira Glass explains his selection process in putting the collection together. It's basically all about journalists who don't shy away from putting themselves in the story. Ira says "I don't see anything wrong with a piece of reporting turning into a fable. In fact, when I'm researching a story and the real-life situation starts to turn into allegory...I feel incredibly lucky..." I would guess this method explains how so many This American Life stories, though about one person's narrow experience, actually speak to broad, universal themes. Anyway, I feel like I learned so much from these stories! They've provided me with a wealth of information with which I'm better able to annoy my friends and family. And, of course, my spouse.

My four favorites:

- David Foster Wallace's story about right-wing talk radio (and a particular host on KFI, an obnoxious LA station that boasts more "stimulating" talk radio). Of course, it's easy to hate this entire genre of radio, but (as Ira points out), DFW writes with some empathy toward the host guy, and that actually allows him to get away with saying unflattering things about him.

- In the story "Tales of the Tyrant," the author tackles the topic of what Saddam Hussein was really like. There aren't really any surprises, but I realized I'd always regarded him as a two-dimensional character. Wait, I take that back about the surprises. I was surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein commissioned a special volume of the Koran written in his own blood. It took three years for him to provide sufficient blood to the team of calligraphers who produced it. Also, I was surprised by the description of Saddam's son Uday's wardrobe.

- "Losing the War" is a story about WWII. It's really well done. And it provides knowledge.

- In the story "Power Steer," the author assesses the modern American beef industry by purchasing a calf (No. 534) and tracing its life from its birth through to its death 14 months later. If loving animals isn't enough to make you want to never eat beef again, this should do it: After explaining the variety of problems caused by making cows eat corn (instead of grass, the diet they're evolutionarily designed to eat), the author highlights another problem: "...you can go father still, and follow the fertilizer needed to grow that corn all the way to the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. No. 534 started life as part of a food chain that derived all its energy from the sun; now that corn constitutes such an important link in his food chain, he is the product of an industrial system powered by fossil fuel. (And, in turn, defended by the military--another uncounted cost of 'cheap' food.) I asked David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist who specializes in agriculture and energy, if it might be possible to calculate precisely how much oil it will take to grow my steer to slaughter weight. Assuming No. 534 continues to eat 24 pounds of corn a day and reaches a weight of 1,250 pounds, he will have consumed in his lifetime roughly 284 gallons of oil. We have succeeded in industrializing the beef calf, transforming what was once a solar-powered ruminant into the very last thing we need: another fossil-fuel machine." Or that should at least make you want to eat only grass-fed beef, which is, according to the author, a viable option.

Now if only Ira would come to my apartment, sift through the mountains of neglected New Yorkers, Harpers, Believers, and whatever else (maybe there are some Us Weeklys), and select another collection of stories for me, I'd be set. One might encourage me to hide the Us Weeklys before he got here, but I would not. I believe he would understand.

(less)

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Jul 29, 2008

Joshua Weichhand rated it

I suppose its fair to say that Ira Glass is kind of my hero. Not necessarily because he's brought down empires with pacifism or because he lobbied auto manufacturers for seat belts, but because he really inspires me to read and write. This entire collection is something he had sitting in a pile on his desk, saved for an appropriate time as he considered them to be great works of nonfiction. I want to be like that, finding something brilliant and xeroxing it and stapling it together with other...more

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Jul 07, 2008

Andrea rated it

I would actually like to give it a 3.5 but rounded up for Ira Glass.

Most of the stories are great, uncovering inconsistent laws related to day trading by a high schooler, an ordinary socialite in extraordinary circles, and a great artist who fell through the large cracks of the establishment of art appreciators. I loved reading about how Monica Lewinsky had to be ushered out of a trendy bar when Chelsea Clinton showed up with her boyfriend, and how Dan Savage fairly successfully i...more

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May 13, 2008

Isaac rated it

Recommends it for: folks interested in the world around them

The worst thing that can be said about this collection is that a few of the pieces in it are merely good. Some of the articles - even those written years or decades ago - are downright revelatory. I guarantee that at least one of these stories will alter your ideas about the way the world is organized; for me, it was Malcolm Gladwell's and Lawrence Weschler's pieces about how the social universe is really put together, and Lee Sandlin's absolutely essential piece about the true characte...more

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Jan 27, 2008

David rated it

Shelves: anthologies-and-collections, read-in-2007

It's deja lu all over again.

This is not the superb collection I would expect from Ira Glass. In fact, it's an odd collection all round - the puzzling question is why it exists at all.

Don't get me wrong. The quality of most of the contributions to this anthology is very high. But most of the pieces are not new. Glass describes his selection criterion: "most of the stories in this book come from a stack of favorite writing that I've kept behind my desk for years"...moreIt's deja lu all over again.

This is not the superb collection I would expect from Ira Glass. In fact, it's an odd collection all round - the puzzling question is why it exists at all.

Don't get me wrong. The quality of most of the contributions to this anthology is very high. But most of the pieces are not new. Glass describes his selection criterion: "most of the stories in this book come from a stack of favorite writing that I've kept behind my desk for years". What does this yield?

Michael Lewis on Jonathan Lebed (the 15-year old who was sued for white-collar crime by the SEC).
Malcolm Gladwell: Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg.
Chuck Klosterman interviewing Val Kilmer.
David Foster Wallace on right-wing talk radio.
Michael Pollan on buying a cow.
Susan Orlean: The American Man, Age Ten.
James McManus on playing in the World Series of Poker.
Mark Bowden on Saddam Hussein.

and stories by Jack Hitt, Dan Savage, Lawrence Weschler, Lee Sandler and Bill Buford.

The problem is that most of the pieces in the book have appeared in print before, not once, but twice. For instance, Gladwell's piece - which is indeed a delight to read - first appeared in The New Yorker, then again in his book "The Tipping Point". Similarly, the pieces by Orlean and Weschler first appeared in The New Yorker and were subsequently republished in books by their authors. David Foster Wallace's story was first published in The Atlantic, and subsequently appeared again in the collection "Consider the Lobster". Pollan's work first appeared in The New York Times, and then again in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma". And so on. I haven't checked, but given the general proliferation of anthologies these days (each year there are the 'best essays', 'best business writing', 'best nonrequired reading', 'best science and nature writing', and The new Yorker has taken to publishing its own anthologies as well), it wouldn't surprise me if some of these pieces have been further anthologized.

Thus, operationally, Ira's selection criterion seems to amount to choosing pieces that have been published at least twice before. Which makes one wonder why Glass felt the need to pull this book together - was he stuck for funds?

my favorite pieces: the article on Jonathan Lebed, Gladwell's piece, and Klosterman's interview of Val Kilmer. At the other end of the spectrum, the article about poker was a tedious, self-indulgent bore and Foster Wallace's abuse of footnotes is unusually rampant. Finally, and this says more about me than about the quality of the essays, but I couldn't manage to make myself finish Lee Sandlin's article about World War II, nor could I bring myself to care about Bill Buford's exploits with British soccer hooligans.

Don't buy this book. If you must read it, check your local library. (less)

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Nov 28, 2007

neeraja rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

Starts off with wonderful pieces, then trails off to the end. While all of the pieces were insightful in their own ways (though I still think the one about poker was a boring waste of space), my favorites were:

- Host, David Foster Wallace's fantastic, hilarious look at conservative talk radio

- Among the Thugs, Bill Buford's disturbing, drunken, participatory account of British soccor hooligans

- Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg, Malcolm Gladwell's take on how we k...more

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Jan 28, 2008

JJ rated it

first of all, ira glass picked these all out so i am inclined to decide to like them whether i actually do or not. but the fact is that these are awesome nonfiction writers. so far they have delivered what mr. glass promises: journalism with a personality. these are highly skilled writers stating facts while managing to entertain wildly. my favorite so far is an extensive analysis of saddam hussein, based on impressions by his (previously) close advisors, friends, victims, and everyone in betwee...more

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Feb 18, 2009

Flissy rated it

Shelves: 2008

It took me a little while to get through The New Kings of Non-Fiction. Although the pieces are for the most part fairly short, some of them are also quite dense and I had to carve out time to actually concentrate!

My favorites were the portraits- An amusing one of Val Kilmer by Chuck Klosterman, an endearing one of "The American Man, Age Ten" by Susan Orlean, and a positively chilling on Sadam Hussein by Mark Bowden. Of course, I loved Malcom Gladwell's piece (an excerpt fro...moreIt took me a little while to get through The New Kings of Non-Fiction. Although the pieces are for the most part fairly short, some of them are also quite dense and I had to carve out time to actually concentrate!

My favorites were the portraits- An amusing one of Val Kilmer by Chuck Klosterman, an endearing one of "The American Man, Age Ten" by Susan Orlean, and a positively chilling on Sadam Hussein by Mark Bowden. Of course, I loved Malcom Gladwell's piece (an excerpt from The Tipping Point - a must-read!)

The only one I really had to slog through was "The Host" by David Foster Wallace. I have read a few things by him and I'm not a fan. I do not find his excessive use of footnotes and other gimmicks clever or avante garde. Rather, they highlight his obvious inability to make a point in any sort of coherent fashion.

Also, I must admit that I didn't read Michael Pollan's "Power Steer." I know he is well respected for Omnivore's Dilemma. Still, as soon as I realized that his article was about what happens when a cow goes to be slaughtered for meat, I skipped over it. I'm sure it is eye-opening and all that jazz, but I am already a soft-hearted vegetarian and I know it would have disturbed me and I didn't need to read it.

It seems there are some critics take issue with the fact that while this book is titled The NEW Kings..., all the pieces have been previously published at least once before, and some of the works, like "Shapinksi's Karma", for example, are as much as twenty years old. However, Ira Glass makes it clear in his introduction that it is the voice in each of the pieces that he is drawn to. All the pieces originate from a reporter's point of view, but each story is as much about the transformation that happens for the reporter as it is about the topic he/she is exposing. All in all, it is an enjoyable collection, and fans of This American Life will appreciate that the collection does not stray far from what Ira Glas is already doing in the radio program.(less)

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Nov 29, 2008

Melody rated it

Shelves: creative-nonficton-memoir

To all of my friends who, in the course of busy, business-y lives, have forgotten how to read novels: If you want to remember the joy of story, start here. Go get this book and read it. NOW.

I widely broadcast my love of Ira Glass and go so far as to assign TAL in class; I love it that much. I always enjoy Ira's creative editorial prowess, and this collection does not disappoint. Every story has its narrative joy: gorgeous, poetic writing; clever character development; suspense; c...more

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Mar 18, 2011

Chinook rated it

· review of another edition

A few of the articles I had come across before, but they were all really enjoyable, even the description of a poker competition that I didn't even really understand. The one on Saddam Hussein was interesting considering events since. My favourite might have been the portrayal of the ten year old.

"The old, Rooseveltian logic of the Doctrine had been that since the airwaves belonged to everyone, a license to profit from those airwaves conferred on the broadcast industry some special...moreA few of the articles I had come across before, but they were all really enjoyable, even the description of a poker competition that I didn't even really understand. The one on Saddam Hussein was interesting considering events since. My favourite might have been the portrayal of the ten year old.

"The old, Rooseveltian logic of the Doctrine had been that since the airwaves belonged to everyone, a license to profit from those airwaves conferred on the broadcast industry some special obligation to serve the public interest. Commercial radio broadcasting was not, in other words, originally conceived as just another for-profit industry; it was supposed to meet a higher standard of social responsibility." Host, David Foster Wallace, The New Kings of Nonfiction

"It's almost impossible to look away [from OJ's murder-anniversary interview], or not to feel that special kind of guilty excitement in the worst, most greedy and indecent parts of yourself... But that doesn't mean the fascination is good, or even feels good. Aren't there parts of ourselves that are just better left unfed?" Host, David Foster Wallace, The New Kings of Nonfiction

"He orchestrated a Draconian nationwide literacy project. Reading programs were set up in every city and village, and failure to attend was punishable by three years in jail. Men, women, and children attended these compulsory classes, and hundreds of thousands of illiterate Iraqis learned to read. UNESCO gave Saddam an award." Tales of the Tyrant, Mark Bowden, The New Kings of Nonfiction

"In any orthodox history you can find the standard autopsy of the causes... All of this is true enough, yet there's something faintly bogus and overly rationalized about it. The approaching war didn't seem like a political or economic event; it was more like a collective anxiety attack. Throughout the '30s people around the world came to share an unshakable dead about the future, a conviction that countless grave international crises were escalating out of control, a panicked sen that everything was coming unhinged and that they could do nothing to stop it." Losing the War, Lee Sandlin, The New Kings of Nonfiction(less)

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Aug 30, 2010

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: essays, non-fiction

In my review of Sloane Crosley's latest book, How Did You Get This Number, I confessed my love for essays, particularly personal essays with a humorous bent. But I like harder hitting essays too, and this collection of non-fiction writing chosen and introduced by This American Life's Ira Glass was a real treat for an essay fan like myself. In my mind, it is also a good introduction to non-fiction writing—a genre that so many readers shy away from (for reasons that elude me).

What makes ...more

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Jul 02, 2009

Shelah rated it

I have a crush on Ira Glass. For years, it was small crush, a radio crush. I just really liked listening to the This American Life podcasts each week and decided Ira was cool. Then Eddie bought me both the This American Life DVDs and New Kings of Nonfiction (which I'd tried unsuccessfully to reserve at the library in Texas) for Mother's Day (because there's nothing better than a husband who appreciates and even encourages his wife's harmless crushes). I watched the DVDs first and they are AMAZIN...moreI have a crush on Ira Glass. For years, it was small crush, a radio crush. I just really liked listening to the This American Life podcasts each week and decided Ira was cool. Then Eddie bought me both the This American Life DVDs and New Kings of Nonfiction (which I'd tried unsuccessfully to reserve at the library in Texas) for Mother's Day (because there's nothing better than a husband who appreciates and even encourages his wife's harmless crushes). I watched the DVDs first and they are AMAZING! If you haven't seen them, they are worth a Showtime subscription. Barring that, they're definitely worth the $27 you'd pay for them at amazon (which is just enough to get free shipping! score!). Glass comes across as slightly nerdier than I'd pictured him from his radio voice, but after ten hours of watching him, my crush was reaching dangerous proportions. I was even considering email love notes to Chicago Public Radio (ok, not really, but I was still swooning).

Then I read The New Kings of Nonfiction. You see, for the last year I've been writing and editing for Segullah, so nonfiction is right up my alley. I was looking forward to some new and groundbreaking nonfiction. I'd already read a few of the essays. And the other essays were just so, well, male. I guess it's no coincidence that the book is called The New KINGS of Nonfiction, because 12 of the 14 essays were written by men. And they were about very male topics: poker, trading stocks, being a lunatic soccer fan, bulls, wars, etc... Even the articles written by women were about things guys would like: one was about what an American ten-year-old male looks like and the other was about working as a hostess at an ultracool NYC bar. So I'd built up in my mind over the last few years this image of Glass as a sensitive metrosexual kind of guy, and the macho themes of the book totally blew that image out of the water. And now I'm not sure what I think about him.

I'll say this though, Malcolm Gladwell's essay "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" is golden. The book is worth picking up even if you only read that. (less)

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May 04, 2009

Joel Neff rated it

Recommends it for: Fans of This American Life

Recommended to Joel by: Boing Boing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In general, a great collection of articles, stories, and profiles from a wide range of sources and covering an even wider range of topics. There are several excellent pieces in here and if Ira Glass puts together another collection, I'll want to read it.

Jonathan Lebed's Extracurricular Activities - About a kid who was found guilty of securities and trading fraud; good 3/5.

Toxic Dreams - About a small town's fight against an environmental mess that turns out to not be ver...more

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Feb 08, 2009

Lauren rated it

Go ahead and try to read Ira Glass' intro and not become instantly entranced and intrigued in the essays that are to follow -- you won't be able to. If you like Ira Glass, you will want to know what kind of writing it takes for him to keep your piece in his desk for years, which is what he did to compile these stories. I really liked the intro because it made me want to become a better reader, a better writer, and it made me really relieved that I backed out of journalism school at the last minu...more

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Dec 08, 2008

Joseph rated it

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites

I'm about halfway through, but what seems to have gone unmentioned by Mr. Glass in his introduction is that all of these essays are connected by a central theme: the idea that the status quo, the rules that make the world work, the day-to-day way the world works, is all bullshit. Every one of these essays are about someone who has managed to work that out and take advantage of it in some way, by realizing that our everyday assumptions are valueless, existing only because we assume that they do ...more

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Jun 26, 2008

Elizabeth rated it

Recommends it for: Megan

While there are shorts in this book that don't grab my interest the majority of them do. After reading through some other reviews of this book it seems that everyone likes different stories and in creating a compilation that has something for everyone Ira Glass has done well. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time. But Mr. Glass makes most of the people happy most of the time.

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Feb 02, 2009

Jesse rated it

Recommended to Jesse by: Stephanie B

Shelves: while-living-in-japan

since I've started finally listening to This Americna Life, I've fallen in love with nonfiction and Ira Glass. Or maybe just Ira Glass and the stories he and people he finds present. I really enjoyed this book, and almost all of the essays in it.

It may be called The New Kings of Nonfiction. However, I'm not entirely sure that is entirely accurate because some of these essays are atleast 15 years old or older, and thats from the time this book was published, not just when I read it...more

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Oct 09, 2009

Jon Cox rated it

Shelves: humor, history-politics, non-fiction, philosophy-religion, travel

I've read some great non-fiction, and some of the articles in this book are pretty darn good. No doubt. But I wouldn't label them all kings (and queens) of non-fiction. In fact, some articles are barely readable. For example, Host is a slog, and that is without considering the terrible formatting of the article, which makes it worse. It took an extreme act of perseverance to finish reading it, especially when Katie, who suggested I read the book, revealed that she stoped reading that article aft...more

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Dec 04, 2008

Cassidy Cassidy rated it

Skip Ira's intro and the one piece with wwwwaaaayyyy too many footnotes, and this diverse series of non-fiction pieces is a joy. I hate gambling -- relying on the (faulty) premise that math PhD's don't do it for a reason -- but I couldn't set the book down as I devoured the piece on the World Series of Poker.

The examination of the American male, age 10, is also a blast. The only female author in the collection (wtf?) succeeds at adapting her own style to the tone of her subject: ...more

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Jun 22, 2010

AdultNonFiction Teton County Library rated it

Teton Co Library Call No: 810 NEW
Marisa's rating: 3 stars

This was a great collection of short non-fiction pieces by authors who have been very popular/prolific recently. I enjoyed Bill Buford's piece on British football hooligans, and Susan Orleans' article on an average 10-year-old. I think the reason I didn't like the collection as much as I would have thought was many of the articles were hard to get into - or didn't keep my attention throughout the entire work. I think the ...more

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Jan 10, 2010

George rated it

i really liked this book. if you like to read nonfiction and tend to enjoy reading the longer stories in the New Yorker, then i would recommend this book. it is a collection of stories by writers you make recognize (malcolm gladwell, dan savage, chuck klosterman, michael lewis, michael bowden) and the stories were selected by ira glass (host of my favorite radio show - this american life). a few of the stories were just okay, but most were really fun to read, and i learned something in all of t...more

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Jul 01, 2009

Elizabeth rated it

Shelves: 2009

This compilation was fun, and aptly introduced by Ira Glass (I'm not sure he could really do anything badly) as an anthology of the writing he keeps returning to, referring to, and recommending to friends. Though I'm rarely someone who gets caught up with such things, the lack of female contributions here was somewhat disquieting (especially considering the two the anthology did contain were some of my favorite pieces in the entire collection). It was also somewhat disappointing that Glass did n...more

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Aug 30, 2009

Meave rated it

Some of the stories were new to me, and pretty fantastic. A few I'd read before, or heard on "This American Life," and also very much liked. But a couple of them dragged so much, it was a terrible slog to get through them. I really wanted to read DFW's "Host," but it was so DFW-y, all chopped up with a million notes in boxes, it was impossible to read. I appreciate that that is (ugh, WAS) his style, but I couldn't make myself push through it. Maybe it was a reflection of the ...moreSome of the stories were new to me, and pretty fantastic. A few I'd read before, or heard on "This American Life," and also very much liked. But a couple of them dragged so much, it was a terrible slog to get through them. I really wanted to read DFW's "Host," but it was so DFW-y, all chopped up with a million notes in boxes, it was impossible to read. I appreciate that that is (ugh, WAS) his style, but I couldn't make myself push through it. Maybe it was a reflection of the disjointed feel of listening to right-wing--or any-wing--talk radio, with the host saying whatever s/he says and your analyzing that narrative for facts/fictions; MAYBE. I thought of that just now, anyway. Still, it was too visually unappealing to me to be worth the effort. I do like his essays, though, so I can see returning to it one day.

"Tales of the Tyrant" should have been great, but it was not. It was tedious, and pointlessly repetitive, and I swear I learned the same facts about Saddam Hussein more vividly from that ridiculous BBC/HBO miniseries House of Saddam. And that should not be! Honestly I was really offended when I realized that that soap opera of a miniseries had done a better job of portraying these same stories than the author did, when it seemed that some of the original source material came from the author's interviews. I say "seemed that" because I swear there were verbatim quotes, like, I could hear Yigal Naor as Saddam saying some of the things the story quoted him as saying in dialogue with these tellers of the "Tales." What this story really did is give me new regard for that miniseries; it must've been much more historically accurate than I gave it credit for. Especially the constant tension, which I attributed to trashy Occidental melodrama. The story talked about the constant tension, but wasn't ever able to properly convey a sense of it, which I guess is what makes it unsuccessful.

"Power Steer" I skipped, as nothing Michael Pollan can say about how a cow is brought to slaughter is news to me, nor is it interesting: I am not into torture narratives or gore-fests, you know? Maybe it'd interest people who haven't read the damn Omnivore's Dilemma or wherever that essay ended up, but I am 25 percent of Vegansaurus, I don't need to hear Michael Pollan, omnivore, tell me The Truth About Factory Farms.

Finally, and this is nit-pickier than anything else, Susan Orlean's "The American Man, Age 10" bothered me because the little white boy who lived in the suburbs was supposed to be Every Boy, and, come on. Do the majority of children in the U.S. live in the suburbs? Are the majority of them white? I liked her story, but I think a more appropriate title might've been, "A Vision of My Son, Age 10" or, "The Suburban American Man," &c. Anyway, I HATE the Every Boy narrative, though this was a pretty great essay because it took me until the last couple of pages to realize what was going on and look at it again from a more critical perspective. Maybe if I had more things to occupy my brain I wouldn't expend so much thought on little, 17-year-old essays like this--best part is that this kid is my age--but I don't, so I can't just accept a surface reading.

The remaining essays make the collection most definitely worth reading, though. It's not like it costs anything but time to borrow it from the library.(less)

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Mar 06, 2010

Bryce rated it

For the most part, a good collection of literary non-fiction essays. Michael Pollan's investigation into the beef industry was my personal favorite, although I remember reading it before in Omnivore's Dilemma. "Shapinsky's Karma" was also wonderful; engaging and almost a little unbelievable. There were several pieces I wish were even longer, Dan Savage's experiences in the Republican Convention and Chuck Klosterman's biography of Val Kilmer.

There were only two essays I cou...more

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Apr 24, 2009

Melissa rated it

Recommends it for: fans of this american life

Shelves: short-stories, 2009

this is basically a book version of glass' radio show. all the articles selected for this book would have made for typical "this american life" episodes. most of the writers do an excellent job of taking a story on something mundane and potentially snooze-worthy, (an average 10 year old boy, a lawsuit again an acid pit, the history of ww1, or the beef industry for some examples) and making it fascinating. the only exception was the final story on the author's participation in a poke...more

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Jun 21, 2009

Lynne Nova is currently reading it

I picked up this book after having a two-year-long love affair with "This American Life," a weekly radio show featuring true stories from around the USA (more details at www.thislife.org). Ira Glass, the host of the radio show, is the editor of this anthology, which feels like an extended version of the show in novel form. What I love best about these stories is that the topics themselves very rarely interest me, until the story begins. Then, I am artfully dipped into the circumstanc...more

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Oct 20, 2008

Jessie rated it

Ira did good. It's an excellent collection of thought provoking and well written pieces of non-fiction. The one about the cattle industry made me wish I could become a double vegetarian.

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Jun 22, 2010

Marisa rated it

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Dec 12, 2008

James rated it

Ok, so I'm obsessed with This American Life, but it still took me some time to get around to thinking that a book he edited would be worth my time. It felt like it was headed straight for disappointment...

He explain in the intro, the source, and point, of the collection: these are a collection of writings that he keeps copies of on his desk to pass out to people as examples of great journalism, and examples of you-can't-be-unbiased-so-get-your-hands-dirty sorts of writing - i.e. in ...more

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About Ira Glass

Ira Glass is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life.

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Books by Ira Glass

The Fairest Fowl: Portraits of Championship Chickens

This American Life: Stories of Hope and Fear

From WBEZ Chicago, This American Life: Lies, Sissies & Fiascoes

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“...these stories are a kind of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.” — 9 people liked it

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