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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331689.In_Persuasion_Nation?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="In Persuasion Nation" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173815861m/331689.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331689.In_Persuasion_Nation?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">In Persuasion Nation</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8885.George_Saunders">George Saunders</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/712059?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>George Saunders seems to have made a pretty solid career for himself by skewering the massively weird and distant ways we consume goods (and by goods here I mean history and information as well as pre-packed food dreck). After reading his last few books I admit I was a little worried for George--it seemed like he had found a good basic situation in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia, mostly the struggle to remain authentically human in a themepark simulation of the real world. These are great stories and I'm glad somebody wrote them, but with his obvious talent for incisive cultural observation, it seemed a little disappointing to watch him reiterate a particular plotline. <br/> <br/>So, In Persuasion Nation is a new iteration of similar ideas, which is great. Saunders is a realist in the hyper- sense: as much as these stories may read as farce/science fiction, they're uncomfortably true to the climate of now. (Sometimes the hyper-real voices, likes and ums and weird grammar all together, begin to grate across a few stories. It's a small complaint but worth noting.) And anyway, I can only read so many stories about quiet, mid-life, midwestern desperation. <br/> <br/>By the way, if you're interested in hyper-real fiction, you may want to check the Believer for an article a few months back on Doctorow's oscillating ideas about what level of representation constitutes "the real" in fiction. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/59032?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>