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State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America
See America with 50 of Our Finest, Funniest, and Foremost Writers Anthony Bourdain chases the fumigation truck in Bergen County, New Jersey
Dave Eggers tells it straight: "Illinois is Number 1"
Louise Erdrich loses her bikini top in North Dakota
Jonathan Franzen gets waylaid by New York's publicist...and personal attorney...and historian...and geologist
John Hodg
...morePaperback, 608 pages
Published
September 29th 2009
by Ecco Press
(first published September 1st 2008)
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Y’all, this book is GREAT. I normally don’t read things like this, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
As you may know, the book is a collection of 50 essays, each written by a different author and each focused on a different state. I chose to read the essays in the order they appear in the book (alphabetical by state), and I did so slowly and methodically, interspersing my reading with random fiction books as well. This is not a book that wants to be plowed th...more
As you may know, the book is a collection of 50 essays, each written by a different author and each focused on a different state. I chose to read the essays in the order they appear in the book (alphabetical by state), and I did so slowly and methodically, interspersing my reading with random fiction books as well. This is not a book that wants to be plowed th...more
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Someone reviewed this as being written by authors native to each state and that is not the case, which is perhaps the problem. Another problem is that you can't find 50 Dave Eggers or Susan Orleans, so you get some states with less-than-stellar (or lazy) writers. Of the states I read, Ohio and Illinois were lovely...well written, with genuine love for the state as well as facts and information. Iowa's essay (my native state) was written by someone who didn't seem to know anything about Iowa. ...more
This collection is a perfect match for William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highway" if you want to capture the true spirit and history of America. One is essentially a travel journal while the other provides multiple perspectives on the individual personalities of states. The essays are varied but never disappointing. There was also the additional surprise of gaining exposure to a unique new author that you might otherwise have never heard from. In fact, as a result of several essays, I'...more
It's going to hard for me to assess this book without sounding too gushing, because it's probably my favorite book of the last year or two (favorite is not to be confused with the best, which it isn't). If you feel ahistorical and disconnected from America and what it means and used to mean, this book will change that (at least temporarily) and reintroduce you to the impossible America of literature. Reading it is like going on the Great American Road Trip you never took, with lots of wonderful,...more
Excellent concept. Good execution.
A brief foray into a state does not qualify one to represent it in a book like this one, in my opinion. I found the "Hey I went to X State for a week and now I can write the WPA essay" examples to be icky.
Also, I had the sense that most of the people here fell within the 30-50 age range. Which is fine, but lent a certain flatness to the book, I think.....
Highlights:
Kevin Brockmeier on Arkansas (nicely f...more
A brief foray into a state does not qualify one to represent it in a book like this one, in my opinion. I found the "Hey I went to X State for a week and now I can write the WPA essay" examples to be icky.
Also, I had the sense that most of the people here fell within the 30-50 age range. Which is fine, but lent a certain flatness to the book, I think.....
Highlights:
Kevin Brockmeier on Arkansas (nicely f...more
I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book, mainly because being English and living in the UK I was worried that most of it would go over my head. However, the wonderful thing about "State by State" is that it tends to focus on the (positive) peculiarities of the US states, including obscure things that I'm sure many Americans may not have known prior to reading! Each state has its own essay written on it by a variety of writers and journalists; some live in the state they are wr...more
With larger anthologies, you expect some uneven contents and that certainly applies here, with the scales of quality jerking rapidly between paydirt and pablum. My tiff with many of the contributors is the tendency to cast light on an entire state through the prism of one principal city. Perhaps it's because so many reside in urban areas. The attempts to have outsiders write about a state are similarly hit-or-miss. (EX: the essay on Iowa - for the record, my home state and, for that matter, f...more
State by State is a collection of 50 essays each by a different author, each about a different state. The project was inspired by the WPA American guide series from the 1930s, and the essays range in style from memoir to travel essay to historical essay. Some of the writers have always lived in the state they write about, some have never lived there, and some have lived there for part of their lives, but they all have something to say about it. I was partial to the essays that were about a pa...more
This book was inspired by a WPA project of the 1930's. At that time, the government commissioned writers in each of the states to write a book about their state: factual, informational, guidebook type. The editors of State by State, instead chose writers of note to each write an essay/article about one of the 50 states, specifically not in guidebook form. Rather they were looking for an essential experience of any type that would give the reader a flavor of the modern day, rather than histori...more
New Jersey was the most hotly contested state. Not in any election, but in the fight to see who would write about it in a new essay anthology "State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America," edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (Ecco: 572 pp., $29.95). The victor was author-chef and TV traveler Anthony Bourdain, who writes: "New Jersey, even now when the whole country looks like Jersey, is still, anachronistically, a punch line."
Fifty states, 50 writers. Some,...more
Fifty states, 50 writers. Some,...more
An interesting idea that results in a fun but somewhat uneven book. With 50 different contributors, I think that's to be expected as the shifts in style will result in a few that move you, a few that make you laugh, a few that really educate you, and a couple that leave you cold. I picked this one up for Sarah Vowell's essay on Montana, Anthony Bourdain's essay on New Jersey, and Jack Hitt's look at South Carolina. Along the way I've also found interesting looks at Vermont, Colorado, the Dakotas...more
Inspired by the WPA guides to the states published half a century ago, this book collects some of the best writers of today writing essays about the fifty states. I initially assumed that I would only read the essays about states I know or by authors I care about, but the quality was consistently high enough that I couldnt stop reading. Highlights include Dave Eggers writing about why Illinois is the best state, Heidi Julavits writing about why Maine is not, John Hodgman doing his thing about ...more
John Hodgman writes the perfect entry for thist type of anthology, his contribution on Massachusetts is informative, detailed, extremely funny, and personal without being entirely personal.
The entry on Arkansas just focuses on Little Rock, so it is limited and not informative of the state as a whole - a flaw in too many essays in this book, focusing on the city with the largest population in the particular state.
Some are just prissy and needless, South Dakota and Kansas g...more
The entry on Arkansas just focuses on Little Rock, so it is limited and not informative of the state as a whole - a flaw in too many essays in this book, focusing on the city with the largest population in the particular state.
Some are just prissy and needless, South Dakota and Kansas g...more
A predictably mixed bag (such is always the case with multiple author collections like this) based on an outstanding concept, State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America provides 50 state essays (think micro versions of the WPA guides) from 50 authors, plus a tacked-on and boring conversation with Edward P. Jones about Washington, D.C.
Some are breathtaking homages to states that perhaps don't get the attention they deserve. Anthony Doerr's phenomenal essay on Idaho, perhaps the b...more
Some are breathtaking homages to states that perhaps don't get the attention they deserve. Anthony Doerr's phenomenal essay on Idaho, perhaps the b...more
my favorites were the throw-away states like Nebraska. I was semi-disappointed with the writers I was jazzed about being in the collection, pleasantly surprised by the unknown (to me) contributors. Some were more depressing than I was hoping, but it reminds us that there are blighted areas even within our own borders.
I want to read the WPA books now!
I want to read the WPA books now!
This book is an anthology of 50 different writers, each writing a non fiction piece about thier impressions of one of the 50 states. Normally, this kind of book is right up my alley. i love travel writing- I get to visit intersting and exotic places w/o the horror of travelers diarrhea. haha But this book- not so much. On the plus side, the wirters were all very different, some were natives of the state, some just passing through, some (like oregon and vermont) were written in comic book format....more
A superb attempt to update the WPA American Guide series of the New Deal era, albeit within the confines of one volume, this excellent anthology takes the reader through a wide range of essays on the states of the union. Big names are there - Dave Eggers confirms his, in my opinion, greater suitability to the short track format, with a paean to Abraham Lincoln, Anthony Bourdain takes us down the "New Joyesy" nostalgia route and John Hodgman is as entertaining as one would expect on the...more
I may have a few more essays to read in here - the introduction for instance, however, I better start writing about it now.
I began with "Iowa" by Dagoberto Glib. It follows the corn, and sets a very high bar for the rest of the essays.
"Colorado", which I read next, did not measure up. However, if you want to know the Colorado I grew up in, that essay is about as close as you can get - especially in its shortcomings. And yes, I borrowed the copy I'm r...more
I began with "Iowa" by Dagoberto Glib. It follows the corn, and sets a very high bar for the rest of the essays.
"Colorado", which I read next, did not measure up. However, if you want to know the Colorado I grew up in, that essay is about as close as you can get - especially in its shortcomings. And yes, I borrowed the copy I'm r...more
This book is a great treat, although, as always with anthologies, some stories are better than others.
The editors, Weiland, deputy editor of the Paris Review, and Wilsey, editor-at-large for McSweeney's, wanted to make a book that is inspired by the WPA Guides - what timing given the current crisis!
The American Guide series of the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s, in which the Works Project Administration (WPA), as part of F.D.R's New Deal, put more than 6000 American writers t...more
The editors, Weiland, deputy editor of the Paris Review, and Wilsey, editor-at-large for McSweeney's, wanted to make a book that is inspired by the WPA Guides - what timing given the current crisis!
The American Guide series of the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s, in which the Works Project Administration (WPA), as part of F.D.R's New Deal, put more than 6000 American writers t...more
As others have noted, this collection of essays is very much a hit-or-miss affair (though which are the hits and which are the misses is clearly a matter of opinion.) Some entries were good, some fantastic, some boring or simply unremarkable, and some were truly irritating. I'd probably say my favorites, in no particular order, were North Dakota (Louise Erdrich), Massachusetts (John Hodgman), Montana (Sarah Vowell), Maine (Heidi Julavits), Florida (Joshua Ferris), Hawaii (Tara Bray Smith), Lou...more
I like this book in theory, but not so much in execution. I like the idea of having an essay about each state, but I quickly realized there are some states I just really don't want to read about. I ended up skipping around reading the essays that looked interesting/were by writers I enjoy. So I can tell you Dave Eggers' piece on Illinois is fantastic. And I read Rick Moody's Connecticut, despite my sort of dislike of him. I liked it, but it focused on Fairfield county, which is not a part of my ...more
I enjoyed this book, for the most part. I liked the format: a different essay for every state.
Being from Kansas, I was disappointed with the essay about my home state. It was boring, to put it plainly, and was much more about the writer himself, who only happened to visit Kansas once with some band, than about Kansas. I found that unfortunate.
For whatever reason, a good number of the writers had an unnecessary preoccupation with sex. The California essay was, toward the ...more
Being from Kansas, I was disappointed with the essay about my home state. It was boring, to put it plainly, and was much more about the writer himself, who only happened to visit Kansas once with some band, than about Kansas. I found that unfortunate.
For whatever reason, a good number of the writers had an unnecessary preoccupation with sex. The California essay was, toward the ...more
This book is a collection of mostly personal short stories about the states by multiple authors. And these stories are very different and that was the best part of it for me. How much I liked the chapter was totally independent from how interested I was in this particular state. For fun I decided to rate the chapters separately and I got 6 chapters that were excellent memorable short stories I loved, 12 that were mildly entertaining, 18 were readable, but I did not remember a thing afterward, 9...more
Love the concept of this book. Inspired by the WPA 1930's American Guide Series, editors commissioned 50 writers to write essays on 50 states. About 25% of these are amazing and these are worth the price of the book alone. Dave Eggers writes a genius essay on Illinois, John Hodgeman makes you laugh out loud as he writes about Massachusetts, and Anthony Bourdain writes of growing up in New Jersey in the shadow of NYC. New writers like Joshua Ferris (Florida) and Charles Bock (Nevada) show their u...more
I tried to read this book four or five months ago, but I noticed that the cover of the book has a banner that says: Take Pride In Your County. Well, taking pride in America has been impossible for the last eight years, so I realized I had to wait until after the election to see if reading the book would be possible. I am glad that I read it after all. Each entry is written by a different writer with a connection, sometimes tenuous, to the state in question. The writers have been given great ...more
I brought my rating up from one star to two based almost solely on the efforts of one Dave Eggers, whose treatise on his home state of Illinois and her unique history just barely redeemed the whole of the midwest from some pretty disappointing writing. My home state of Michigan, for example, is an unimpressive essay by an even less impressive essayist who was selected, I can only assume, on accident, as he was actually a resident of Africa only briefly staying in the state on a school visa. How ...more
Inspired by the WPA American Guide series of the 1930s and '40s, these 50 stories capture a portrait of America that can be seen only by people who live in the states.
I liked the premise of this book but liked it even more when I read that the same old tired authors weren't writing about their states. No Garrison Keillor writing about lutefisk in Minnesota and no Joan Didion writing about California. I appreciated the fresh approach to the stories the almanac facts that introduced e...more
I liked the premise of this book but liked it even more when I read that the same old tired authors weren't writing about their states. No Garrison Keillor writing about lutefisk in Minnesota and no Joan Didion writing about California. I appreciated the fresh approach to the stories the almanac facts that introduced e...more
Great idea, this book. Apparently, back in the 30s, the government commissioned writers to do a book for every state, to encourage tourism and such, and these two guys wanted to redo that same idea today, but commission one essay for every state. And were smart about it too, they didn't want to do the obvious stuff, so they decided not to hire Stephen King for Maine, or Garrison Keillor for Minnesota. Nobody who is overly associated with any one state. And further, they wanted to vary the tone, ...more
This was a really enjoyable anthology--I especially enjoyed the essays on Maine, Florida, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. I also discovered a host of new authors whose other works I'd like to check out.
Are there any common threads among the states? If there's any take-away from this book, it's the sense of belonging, and how elusive such inclusivity can be. Birthright, from coast to coast, seems to be the one guarantee of being a local. Arriving at any other po...more
Are there any common threads among the states? If there's any take-away from this book, it's the sense of belonging, and how elusive such inclusivity can be. Birthright, from coast to coast, seems to be the one guarantee of being a local. Arriving at any other po...more
I thought this was one of the best anthologies I've come across. Some collections of essays/short stories might seem to jump around too much, so that in retrospect one might jumble up details or moods from each source. The 50 essays herein (plus one interview and a couple dozen tables), are sufficiently bound together by the theme of describing something(s) unique about each state that each author can go in his or her own direction with it. So there is wide variation in the balance each gives to...more
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Matt Weiland was formerly the Deputy Editor of The Paris Review. He has been an editor at Granta, The Baffler and The New Press, and he oversaw a documentary radio unit at NPR. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, New York Observer, The Nation and The New Republic. He is the co-editor, with Sean Wilsey, of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup and, with Thomas Frank, of ...more
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