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Oct 16, 2011

Carly rated it:

Ok, Jonathan Franzen. WE GET IT. You're a martyr for truth and beauty and all that is good because you read books and don't like technology and smoke cigarettes and still use a rotary telephone. You are a superior human being because you don't watch t.v. You could've said that all in one paragraph, but you chose to do it in 300 palpably crotchety, Andy Rooney-esque pages. As Shruti rightly pointed out, it is surprisingly refreshing to read an author who annoys the shit out of you, especially wi More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Fred rated it:

to describe my objection to this book of essays i'm going to use a word that i don't quite understand in this context but that feels correct to me somehow: generous. these essays aren't very generous. i'd imagine they were cathartic to write. they certainly do a good job of demonstrating the author's intelligence. but in essay after essay, i found myself waiting for the part where i'd find out why i was supposed to give a fudge about what i was reading. to choose one example that crops up over a More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2010

Farren added it

Subtitled, YOU KIDS AND YOUR VAN HALEN RECORDS. GET OFF MY LAWN! (by Jonathan Franzen.)

13 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2008

booklady rated it:

Update: 13 November 2008 Franzen surprised me by saving the best for last. His second from the last essay, "Meet Me in St. Louis" turned out to be the best by far. It's the most personal and also brings the book back to where it started, his childhood home and mine, St. Louis. The first essay, "My Father's Brain" is about his father's slow drift into Alzheimers and the author's own reluctance to accept where his father's going. It is poignant in its understatedness.
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4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Kat rated it:

Franzen is somewhat dark, but in a real world, plain in front of you real and dark. I like his explanations, his inclusion of family and his truthfulness. Perhaps his explanations are a mirror for me, but I had read a few of these essays before they appeared in this book. He is worth the poke of prod and read. He is infinitely human, and his work is readable, and ultimately, human in its dimension of honesty. I find it lovable and laudable, in that, he worries about readers understanding his wri More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2007

Patrick rated it:

I should preface this by saying that I don't really like books that are just repackaged essays or features from magazines, and if I'd been aware that that's what this was, I might not have been so eager to read it. As it was, I'd just finished reading 'The Corrections' and wanted to get my hands on anything Franzen related as soon as possible. This book slowed that urge to a screeching halt.

It's not as if Franzen is a bad writer. Far from it. He's amazingly smart and talented, and su More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Nidhi rated it:

He is a fairly pompous writer. I will start with that because it's important to know the tone from which you will be inflicted pages and pages of advice on how to be "proper" reader in today's society. This book is a series of essays written by Jonathan Franzen recently as well as revisited essays from his past. He laments the fall of the novelist, the over-importance put to privacy and the lack of care afforded to the the public, and deteriorating postal systems (this essay, I must More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Ben rated it:

Jonathan Franzen is one of the wunderkinds of modern American letters. Justly praised for his 2001 novel, The Corrections, he nevertheless became the subject of much criticism when that novel was selected for the Oprah Winfrey book club only to have his inclusion rescinded when he expressed doubts about it. He was also targeted because, in 1996, in Harpers Magazine, he had published an essay entitled Perchance to Dream (now renamed Why Bother?) in which he posed a number of question about the More...

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Jan 05, 2012

Christina Marie rated it:

The last time I was in the library, Jonathan Franzen written along a spine caught my eye. Why did I want to read this book? Where had I heard this name? The book looked brand new. However, most of its essays are from the late 90s and early 2000s. The political and social references are fascinating because they are now all in hindsight. Most (if not all) are pre-September 11th. They are all pre-current-economic-meltdown and new President Obama.

The essence of the essays are timeless. More...

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Aug 17, 2011

Shana rated it:

Great quote from this book that I really relate to:
"...I admit an almost physical craving for the comforts of the suburban mall. Natural opiates flood my neural receptors when I step from the parking lot into the airlock...I have cash in my wallet, my skin is white, and I feel utterly, utterly welcome...
"My craving for city life feels entirely different... cities represent an older, less advanced stage in the development of buying and selling, in which producers work cheek by More...

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Aug 06, 2011

Ron rated it:

Franzen's essays are fairly wide ranging and somewhat mixed in quality, yet somehow manage all to be a little bit autobiographical in their expression of his alienation from the world.

The famous Harper's essay is as good as advertised, and Mr. Difficult is a wonderful mini-biography of Gaddis couched as a defense of difficult literature, but The Reader in Exile is insipid and Books in Bed does little more than illustrate Franzen's own sexual repression. The First City and Lost in More...

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Jun 04, 2011

Rowena rated it:

this is the first work i've read by jonathan franzen, and quite possibly the first work of nonfiction i've voluntarily read.

he started off well with the essay about his father, which was sad and for me, relatable to a degree. so i liked him.

then i got to "why bother?"/the harper's essay, and his lament of technology's growth didn't sit well with me. after all, without the internet, i wouldn't have known about him or found many of the authors/musicians i currently en More...

1 comment like

Dec 19, 2010

Tom rated it:

This is actually the first Franzen book I've read; I plan to read The Corrections and Freedom in the not too distant future. HTBA is a collection of nonfiction essays, shorter versions of which previously appeared in magazines, which I've never read because I don't read magazines.

The first thing I noticed about his writing style is the comfort and ease with which he wields a large vocabulary. It is apparent early on that Jon Franzen isn't trying to impress you with words he knows, but More...

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Dec 15, 2010

Phillip rated it:

Throughout The Corrections and this book, the second I've read, I'm constantly oscillating from being at odds and being in accord with Jonathan Franzen. But whatever arguments or statements he makes in his essays, they seem to only be a departure point for him to try to figure out his own identity in the corporatized, neoliberal, and aggressive consumer culture of America... or at least most of them. I couldn't figure out where some of these essays found a place in this collection of "how More...

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Apr 27, 2010

Tim rated it:

There are interesting essays in this book! None of them are about being a novelist. Anyone who loved The Corrections should read "My Father's Brain" and "Meet Me In St. Louis" (and Bukowski fans will appreciate "Lost in the Mail") but anyone who doesn't themselves write literary fiction would be best-served by giving themselves permission to quickly page through the agitated hand-wringing over the Fate of the Novel or the Corrosive Effect of Technology on Culture or More...

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Jun 14, 2009

Chelsea rated it:

I really, really liked this book, well, collection of essays. It's something
that I picked up for C. T. for Christmas (he posted a brief review but I can't find it) as well as for myself at the same time, it looked so interesting. The title, I've found, is a little misleading, it's not so much about how to achive the state of alone-ness as it is about how to spend that alone time. But even then, it's makes no directives, merely puts forth ideas for you to ponder at your leisure. And ponder More...

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Feb 24, 2011

Richard rated it:

The thing that I like about this book is that it's written by a fellow curmudgeon who likes to complain about the current state the world. Hey! I like to do that too! For most of the book Mr. Franzen bemoans the decline of the literary novel, the wastefulness of modern society, the miserly plight of the working author, the degeneration of culture and the questionable morality of the criminal justice system. He complains a lot.

But Mr. Franzen's complaints are not like my complaints. T More...

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Sep 19, 2007

Nick rated it:

I bought this used hardcover at the Williamsburg Flea Market. I wish I had read this collection of essays, reviews and whatnot a few years ago, when it came out, because about half of it seems pretty dated (railing against touchtone phones and CDs). But still worth reading. I've come to enjoy Franzen's vinegar drinking non-fiction voice, probably more than I would enjoy actually knowing the man. I guess I should bite the bullet and read The Corrections, like everyone else.

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2010

Kathrina rated it:

Franzen, we know you've been busy writing the Great American Novel and all, but you are overdue for a new collection of essays that embraces (or at least nods towards) the 21st century. Several of these essays claim a date somewhere in the 90's, but I swear his ode to rotary phones could be decades older. Has he not been introduced to the cell phone? He speaks of Touch-Tones as cutting edge communication devices. In 1995 he gave away a television that appears to have doubled as side table; how l More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2010

Dhitri rated it:

I usually steer clear from a book that merely repackages past essays but as I was waiting for my turn to borrow Franzen's latest work from the library, I figured I may as well pick up this book (another was his memoir) to fill in the gap. So I went into the book with minimal expectations, hoping to just skim through it. But I was transfixed the moment I read his opening essay, an account on Alzheimer and how his father, suffering long from the terrible disease, had slowly drifted into oblivion a More...

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Nov 13, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

I assume the working title of this book was, 'I Fear Change - Now Where's My Dictaphone?' Oh, Jonathan Franzen...

I enjoyed a few of the essays, but I cannot read Franzen when he dicusses technology or almost any other aspect of modern life. It truly never seems to occur to him that just because something is new or different, that doesn't make it bad. It's almost laughably predictable after a while. He's writing in the mid-to-late 90s, so he prefers cassette tapes to CDs, and typ More...

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Jun 20, 2011

Vinny rated it:

A couple months ago I had read "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen and (not to fall victim to hyperbole) thought it was one of the best pieces of fiction I have read that has been written in the last 20 years. Unfortunately this is not a review of "Freedom," nor is it a review of a piece of fiction by Franzen. This group of essays is seems to fall victim to what Franzen himself diagnoses in his anxiety-ridden essay "Why Bother- the Harper's Essay." That is to say that by More...

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Aug 31, 2010

Keith rated it:

i really, really loved this collection. i'll halt before making a qualitative judgment, because i'm not sure how objectively "good" Franzen is, but i could relate to his complaints, his passions and his sadnesses surprisingly well. in some of the journalistic pieces, Franzen battles with our "technoconsumerist" society by critiquing the Chicago postal service, the American prison system, pop-sex books, and the historical development of major American cities and suburbs. it More...

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Aug 23, 2009

Steve rated it:

I had never read Franzen before, but had high expectations. I certainly was not at all disappointed--Franzen is everything that I expected, a combination of humor and forceful intelligence. Some essays stand out from this collection and really make it worthwhile: "My Father's Brain," "Imperial Bedroom," "Why Bother?," "Books in Bed," the hilarious "Inaugration Day," and his account of his Oprah experience, "Meet Me in St. Louis."
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Jul 17, 2011

Sean rated it:

I came to this book with a certain curious apprehension. I knew Franzen had a reputation for elitism and pessimisim, but I was also struck by the title and his love of and for reading. Then indeed you jump right into "My Father's Brain" (after the initial self-aggrandizing preface) a morose essay about how his father suffered and died from Alzhiemers. Damn, I thought, this is going to be a tough one.

I was right, there were times I laughed out loud at his pandering and More...

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Mar 29, 2009

Bridgette rated it:

Love the essay on the Chicago postal service ... also the essay on smoking is about as hilarious as David Sedaris' "When you are engulfed in flames".

I was also completely smitten with Franzen's ability to describe the tangibly horrifying problems in our "correctional" system of jails and prisons. His self-reflection on his whiteness and implication in our current system makes me believe in people more.

Franzen's essay about the merits of reading diff More...

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Jun 23, 2011

Adam rated it:

This is a great collection of Franzen essays of varying lengths, depth and subject matter. Most of them are from before or shortly after The Corrections came out, and I had never read any of them before.

I love Franzen's writing style, and it's always interesting to see it applied to personal, nonfiction pieces like the ones he writes for the New Yorker, which I believe is where many of these were originally published (before I had taken notice of him). All of the essays are thought More...

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Jul 30, 2009

Emily rated it:

not all the essays were great. some of the points were repetitive (including oddly sweeping comments about both environmental and cultural degredation).

and yet there was something really beguilling about this book. i loved 'the corrections' but couldn't explain why, aside from isolated moments of heartbreak to do with his father's alzheimer's, a general texture to the thing that felt good, consistent, all the way through. it was definitely one of those books i liked fine, but whose More...

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Dec 08, 2010

Claudia rated it:

These essays are amazing, beautifully written and thought-provoking. The essays examine topics from the postal service and prisons to Alzheimer's disease and the fate of the novel. They are all deeply personal. In many, you see Franzen really struggling with what it means to be a writer and the loneliness of the craft. I especially loved the haper's essay he redid, called Why bother?--a meditation on the sense of companionship novels offer readers and the ways that readers find solace for the un More...

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May 31, 2009

Dan rated it:

This book of essays was quite entertaining. I found the essays about subjects other than the state of literature to be the most entertaining. Some of the essays are from the 90s and reflect the sensibilities and uncertainty of how technology and the internet will develop and affect our lives. I did get bored with the essays on the state of literature. The first one was decent but the other two felt sort of rehashed. Perhaps this is the case because of their age of the essays and the fact I have More...

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