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Love and Other Ways of Dying: Essays

Michael Paterniti

3.98 · Rating details · 740 ratings · 131 reviews

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS - In this moving, lyrical, and ultimately uplifting collection of essays, Michael Paterniti turns a keen eye on the full range of human experience, introducing us to an unforgettable cast of everyday people.

Michael Paterniti is one of the most original and empathic storytelle ...more

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Paperback, 464 pages

Published June 28th 2016 by Dial Press (first published March 3rd 2015)

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Apr 03, 2016 Esil rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

3 ½ stars. I listened to the audio of Love and Other Ways of Dying. It is a collection of essays by Michael Paterniti that he has written over the last 25 years or so. Most essays focus on different people around the world – dealing with themes of survival and death in one way of another. There is a certain whimsy to some of the essays – a man stranded at Charles de Gaulle airport for over 14 years, a man who showed up in a hospital in Toronto having ostensibly lost his memory and any clue about ...more

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Aug 03, 2016 Trish rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia, midwest, adventure, funny, journalism, travel, america, literature, nonfiction, something-completely-new

Mike Paterniti is slyly profound. It is hard to pick a favorite among these essays, and it gets harder the more distance one gets from reading them. They stay around like a seed planted. They grow. It is easy to underestimate Paterniti because his writing voice is self-deprecating and meant to be goofily funny. But a couple of essays in this nonfiction collection prove his bonafides as someone who knows what seeing is, what wonder is. These essays range the world, and though early on I’d picked Mike Paterniti is slyly profound. It is hard to pick a favorite among these essays, and it gets harder the more distance one gets from reading them. They stay around like a seed planted. They grow. It is easy to underestimate Paterniti because his writing voice is self-deprecating and meant to be goofily funny. But a couple of essays in this nonfiction collection prove his bonafides as someone who knows what seeing is, what wonder is. These essays range the world, and though early on I’d picked one or two I thought showcased his talent, two near the end of the collection spoke to me most directly. Ask me again in a week and I will choose a different set.

A GR friend pointed to this title, and his enthusiastic review made me want to see what he saw. The two essays David points to in his review, “Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow” and “Driving Mr. Albert,” are two I wish all the pundits and newscasters had read before the presidential campaign started in the U.S. Paterniti tells of warring motels along an ignored stretch of road in Kansas, one motel owned by the whites, and two on either side of that owned by the yellows. It is a transcendent piece of writing because both sides are understandable in their resentments and there seems no solution in sight unless they get to know one another to see what suffering is.

In his review David points to that bit in “Driving Mr. Albert,” a horrible and ghastly story about driving across country with Einstein’s brain in the car trunk, where Paterniti points out “Frankly, out in America, you get the feeling that America is dying.” There is a stench of formaldehyde in his words throughout which makes one want to wretch, and nothing he writes along the way makes it better. It is a kind of grotesquerie but we cannot pull away. This man went and witnessed and we can just say, “how about that?”

One essay—I want to say story because it reads so much like fiction—that stood out for me was “The Suicide Catcher,” set in Nanjing, China. A man takes it upon himself to try and keep people from jumping to their deaths along a stretch of bridge over the Yangtze River. Paterniti flew there to meet Mr. Chen:

"He had a paunch, blackened teeth, and the raspy cough of an avid smoker—and he never stopped watching, even when he allowed himself a cigarette, smoking a cheap brand named after the city itself. He wore a baseball cap with a brim that poked out like an oversized duck’s bill, like the Cyrano of duck bills, the crown of which read They spy on you."

The piece is mesmerizing. Paterniti caught that “China feel” precisely, down to the eight-table local restaurant near the bridge, the walls of which held side-by-side posters of Buddha and liquor ads, and the cloudy glasses of which held beer or grain alcohol that Mr. Chen slammed down with a greedy satisfaction and pride. Paterniti caught the feel of suicide-catching, too, as he stood without Mr. Chen on the bridge later. A man, boozed to the gills, decided he could no longer take the pressure of caring for a sick relative and his family as well. He very nearly succeeded in rolling himself over the balustrade…

“Never Forget” made me shake with fear and brought me to tears. For the first time since our presidential campaign started this time I realized that we human beings have many documented cases—here is another one—of mass delusion and slaughter of fellow humans. It can happen again. It makes no sense, but no matter how remote it seems, we must be vigilant. In this essay the author is in Cambodia with his wife and child. He walks in the park with his son “clutching him like a snake-spooked chimpanzee,” while everyone smiles and points at them. Everyone smiles so consistently he starts to get paranoid. “Why is everyone smiling?” he wonders. “Was the joke on me?…Or are they smiling because they can?” Chum Mey, a survivor of Cambodia’s Killing Fields, smiles too, though we may never understand how.

"In the first spasm of violence, everyone wearing glasses was killed. Everyone who spoke a foreign language was killed. Everyone with a university education was killed. Word was sent to expats living abroad to come home and join the new Cambodia; when a thousand or so arrived on special flights from Beijing, they were killed. Monks, so revered in Cambodian society and long the voice of conscience there, were killed. Lawyers, doctors, and diplomats were killed. Bureaucrats, soldiers, and policemen, even factory workers (Who in the minds of the Khmer Rouge were equivalent to industrialization itself), were killed."

I am not equating what is happening here with what has happened elsewhere. I am merely pointing out that people can be led to madness. Dystopia has its roots in that fear. In fiction it can be thrilling. In real life it is unqualified horror. Paterniti ended up returning to Cambodia for the trials which had dragged on so very long that everyone on both sides of the case were dying before sentencing. Chum Mey was there, smiling. Paterniti was strong to witness this episode in history, and brave.

It may be worth pointing out that this type of nonfiction storytelling is kind of an unusual genre. Or is it? I mean, it is not journalism exactly. Where does a quirky, interested, interesting voice writing nonfiction fit in the canon unless one is telling news? He writes magazine pieces for GQ. But this is still an unusual category: not travel writing or memoir-writing or straight journalism. The author barely appears in these pieces except for playing straight man or adding an occasional editorial comment or two. It is more like the pieces published in The New Yorker, I guess. Anyway, if someone else were as quirky and observant as Paterniti and could write as well, they might find an audience. My guess is that Paterniti would say, “No, don’t. It ain’t that easy…” But he’d say it with a smile. ...more

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Feb 25, 2015 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: creative-non-fiction, read2015, reviewcopy, ebooks

I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

After reading The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese with one of my book clubs and taking a class in creative non fiction, I was drawn to this book of essays. And like most books of essays, I found I really enjoyed some and skimmed through others. I don't think that's necessarily a comment on the author's writing as much as stylistic preference, interest in subject I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

After reading The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese with one of my book clubs and taking a class in creative non fiction, I was drawn to this book of essays. And like most books of essays, I found I really enjoyed some and skimmed through others. I don't think that's necessarily a comment on the author's writing as much as stylistic preference, interest in subject matter, and my attention span.

Some of my skimming moments seemed to fall into two categories - too much meander in the writing. This happens a lot in personal stories such as in the one about the high school car accidents. The other is the second-person employed in an essay about a traumatic or catastrophic event - you you you - I didn't like the combination and it felt confrontational somehow. So I didn't finish the tsunami essay for this reason.

My favorites seemed to be more about pleasant subject matter, which surprised me because it seems harder to write in a captivating manner about happy topics. But I think this is where Paterniti shines, rather than the Khmer Rouge.

Highlights:
"He Might Just Be a Prophet" - I never tire of reading about Ferran Adria, and now that he has closed El Bulli, it felt nostalgic to read this piece. Paterniti does not just eat there and write about it, he spends more time with the chef. The tone captures Adria's spirit and the descriptions are the best attempt I've seen to try to give someone the experience of the cuisine without having it in their mouth.

"The Giant" - about the tallest man in the world, Leonid Stadnik. It isn't putting him up as a hero, bearer of woes, but it does portray the good and the bad of having an incredibly large body. I spent so much time looking at pictures and reading other stories about Stadnik after reading the essay, I knew he had me hooked.

"Holding my hand, he ceased to be a giant at all. Rather, in his world now, I became the dwarf."

"Driving Mr. Albert" - a bizarre story where he is driving around with a doctor who stole Albert Einstein's brain (and with the brain itself). This didn't seem real. Does it have to be real? A bizarre thing happened where he mentions the Asmat of "Irian Jaya" (now called West Papua) and what they believed about consuming someone's brain... just a bizarre connection to all of my recent New Guinean reads, completely unrelated to the rest of the essay. (Well, not completely, but you know what I mean.)

"Never Forget" - this is the one about the Khmer Rouge and S-21. Phew. Any time you read something about this, it's bound to be emotional, but he explored an aspect of it I didn't know anything about. 3 people surviving a prison that held 15,000. A person responsible for most of those deaths being given only a 19 year sentence. The connection between this genocide and the others, and the unclaimed American responsibility.

"Or in other words, our own genocide forever comes next."

"The Last Meal" - Oh my goodness. He writes about food best when it is slightly off-kilter and this is the story of the French President, François Mitterand, and his legendary last meal. The story is stretched to include the author also consuming the ortolan, complete with hood to block the noises from the others/God. What a fascinating, disturbing tradition that I thought only belonged in a fantasy novel! ...more

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Nov 06, 2017 Lisa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: essays

Paterniti brings a blend of curiosity, empathy and spectacular writing to this remarkable essay collection. There were some essays that resonated more with me than others, but I learned from all of them and feel fortunate to have had this reading experience.

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Jan 28, 2015 JenniferD rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-books, nonfiction

4.5-stars, really.

right up front, i am going to apologize, this is a long ramble-y mess. i know that. but this book... ooof! it creates feelings, and my brain is fairly swimming for all the thinking. sorry!!

"I want to see it, whatever it is. If it's war, if it's suffering, if it's complete, unbridled elation, I just want to see what that looks like—I want to smell it, I want to taste it, I want to think about it, I want to be caught up in it." - Michael Paterniti

the human body is an incredible ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Cat rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Cat by: Shalinee

Let me set any of your misapprehensions aside from the outset. This really is a book about death. When I picked it up, I thought the title was catchy--a post-Gonzo-journalism way of alluding to the intensity of the writer's travels and experiences. But no. This collection is about death--death by plane crash, death by car accident, death by cancer, death by giantism, death by genocide, death by tsunami, death by plane crash (again). You get the picture. If you are not ready for an essay collecti Let me set any of your misapprehensions aside from the outset. This really is a book about death. When I picked it up, I thought the title was catchy--a post-Gonzo-journalism way of alluding to the intensity of the writer's travels and experiences. But no. This collection is about death--death by plane crash, death by car accident, death by cancer, death by giantism, death by genocide, death by tsunami, death by plane crash (again). You get the picture. If you are not ready for an essay collection that is basically about death except for the two occasions when it's about eating (and really both of those essays about eating are about deriving pleasure before dying--the first one implicitly so, and the second one explicitly so), then put down this book.

If you are ready to meditate on mortality--its suddenness, its terrors, the pain that can lead up to it--then this may well be the book for you. Paterniti is a stylish writer who in the style of the New Journalism is deeply invested in character sketches and in his own tentative and emotional relationship to his subjects. Because of his eye for the strange detail--patterns of speech, idiosyncracies of event--these are memorable, thoughtful portraits, and he clearly cares as much about language as a quest for meaning as he does about its mimetic capacity.

I did have a few reservations about the book, and the two biggest ones are related. First, it felt very striking to read this essay collection during the same year when I read Between the World and Me because it made me think, as Paterniti traveled the world to participate in other people's despair, that only a first world white dude could need to work so hard to get in the middle of intense, catastrophic experiences. If he'd grown up black in America, his body would have experienced that proximity to violence, that explicit threat of dismantling, quite directly, and it would not have taken traveling back in time to Nazi Germany (as in the chapter on a terrible and beautiful anatomy book) or far in geographical space to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (as in the chapter on one of the very few survivors of a death camp there) to do so. This is not to say that first world white men cannot experience intimations of mortality, nor that first world white men should not report on terrors in the rest of the world; rather, Paterniti's obsession with uncovering other people's suffering feels a bit like emotional tourism, and I couldn't shake the feeling that his own relative comfort and privilege in the world exacerbated that.

The second reservation is related to this feeling, and it comes from Paterniti's delight in using the "you." He often uses the second-person address to ask his reader to identify directly with the characters in his story. While this works stylistically, I'm not sure it works ethically, and it feels to me that it's related to the white-man-thing (as in white men are taught that they are the philosophical, universal "human," the unmarked standard, thus projecting one's own experience into others, assuming your subjectivity can encompass someone else's point of view is second nature). I felt uncomfortable with it, even as I found it absorbing.

All this being said, these essays will stay with me because of the intensity and the humility of Paterniti's vision. Indeed, in spite of my reservations about his privilege and his subjects' suffering, he is not an arrogant writer, and he wants to parse human fragility and our quest to make meaning in the face of the meaningless and apocalyptic forms of loss. That made the most powerful chapter of all for me the personal chapter that he wrote about a friend from high school who died in a car crash and the friend from high school who was blamed for it. Here, Paterniti finally didn't feel like a tourist, and his own sense of ethical confusion (remembering with guilt that he wished that his closer friend would survive the crash and recognizing that that wish constituted a death wish for the other friend) feels poignant and true.

(I should say that even when he's borrowing someone else's experience, he can create the illusion of their interiority! The chapter on the tsunami and the man who loses his wife, his grip on her hand slipping as the wave takes them, their house, and their pigeon roost is absolutely harrowing. Even though I think it's an ethically sticky wicket, Paterniti does bring home these stories with grace and sympathy.) ...more

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Apr 06, 2015 Chris Blocker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Essays aren't my thing. Not usually. I've read a good essay now and then, but an entire collection of essays, especially a rather lengthy one, rarely breaks my top 100 most desired reads. But I was enticed by the pretty cover and the hype, so I decided to give Michael Paterniti's collection, Love and Other Ways of Dying, a try. I'm glad I did.

Paterniti begins with a quote from Steinbeck. Not just any quote, but the dedication Steinbeck included with his manuscript of East of Eden that he sent to Essays aren't my thing. Not usually. I've read a good essay now and then, but an entire collection of essays, especially a rather lengthy one, rarely breaks my top 100 most desired reads. But I was enticed by the pretty cover and the hype, so I decided to give Michael Paterniti's collection, Love and Other Ways of Dying, a try. I'm glad I did.

Paterniti begins with a quote from Steinbeck. Not just any quote, but the dedication Steinbeck included with his manuscript of East of Eden that he sent to friend and editor, Pascal Covici. This was also the epigraph used in East of Eden itself. In case you didn’t know, East of Eden, is the greatest book ever written; it’s a fact. The quote was a bold move, but it really encapsulates what Love and Other Ways of Dying is.

The essays in this collection are selected from among the best Paterniti's written over his long career. They span decades and many walks of life. From childhood baseball heroes to a Ukrainian giant, from the busy kitchen of the most imaginative restaurant in the world to the fields of a downed airliner, Paterniti clears a path around the world and makes it sound easy.

Not only does the travel seem effortless, but so does Paterniti's prose. He weaves sentences gorgeously. Such vibrant prose is not easy for a fiction writer, but it seems that taking a factual story and uncovering the beauty of it would be so much more difficult. Which brings me to the one thing that left me uncomfortable about Love and Other Ways of Dying: how true are some of these stories; how much of Paterniti's prying to discover the heart of the story left those behind heartbroken? Undoubtedly, the author works very hard for his stories. He gets confessions that I imagine required a great deal of confidence (or imagination). While reading the story of competing motels in Dodge City, Kansas, a story about unabashed racism that mentions specific individuals and motels, I was curious if the people and businesses truly existed. They do. Further research led me to Dodge City's shocked response and the reactions of those mentioned in the story, including the victim of the racism who herself felt saddened by Paterniti's portrayal of her. I couldn’t shake this feeling of how much was too much when it comes to a story. Brand a story as fiction, and as long as you don’t make it too obvious, you can say what you want. Sell it as fact, use actual names and events, and one must consider the consequences. Certain stories left me uneasy. Others left me inspired. All but one or two left me with strong feelings.

Love and Other Ways of Dying didn’t only tug at my heart, it stimulated my mind. Nearly every essay sent me to Google. My search history is full of names, places, and events. Paterniti successfully found the most unbelievable stories, made them sound even more unbelievable; yet, search after search proved that the subjects were indeed fact. I learned so much. It was this attainment of knowledge that really earned this book the highest rating.

Which bring us back to Steinbeck. Paterniti’s essays have a strangely similar feel and beauty to Steinbeck’s many stories. There’s the same pushing of emotional boundaries that some find manipulative, others find powerful. The subjects are just as unbelievable. The difference is found in the fact that Steinbeck’s unbelievable supposedly-true stories (eg, the itinerant Shakespearean actor in Dakota [Travels with Charley], the bluff of a small, unarmed troop that resulted in the capture of an army twice its size [Once There Was a War]) are likely tall-tales that mirror our hopes and entertain us. Paterniti’s stories, largely factual and certainly capable of stimulating the reader’s wonder, often leave behind a sense of sadness. There are exceptions; some really big exceptions, like the story of the heroes of Air Florida Flight 90. Largely these essays are meant to inspire awe, not hope. Love and Other Ways of Dying is educational, fascinating, and filled with beautiful words; the only things it might be missing are hope and compassion. ...more

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Aug 08, 2015 Jaclyn Day rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book of essays read smoothly, like a glass of good wine, though not all the stories are easy reads. It’s a strong collection and a few were really memorable. I loved the one about his visit to El Bulli in Spain. The Long Fall of Flight 111 Heavy–which you can read here on Esquire–was particularly meaningful to me since I have family in the area. ...more

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Jul 19, 2018 Laura Hoffman Brauman rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars. This is a harder one for me to rate. The writing in here is 5 stars all the way through --but it's an essay collection, and while some were among the best essays I have read, others just didn't interest me. I think that the unevenness for me is probably it's because this is just a collection of essays he has written rather than a collection of essays around a specific theme or topic. ...more

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Dec 03, 2018 Kent Winward rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This collection is excellent. Paterniti has a knack for finding the extraordinary ordinary and the ordinary in the extraordinary, not to mention the extraordinary. A strong collection of stories and essays spanning a couple of decades. The original essay that became the book Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain is in here and I especially enjoyed "The House that Thurman Munson Built." The giant in the Ukraine was unsettling as a visit with a giant might be. ...more

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Feb 26, 2015 Genevieve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, nonfiction, reviewed-nonfiction, stayed-with-me-for-days, favorites, memoir-essays-narrative, librarything-early-reviewer, epic-immersive

Michael Paterniti writes the kind of journalistic pieces and personal essays that have that slow, delicious build I relish. As with all great long-form writing, the experience depends on you being a good reader. In other words, you have to be willing to go the distance and stick around even when the story wanders, even when you the story seems to digress and lose its way, or when the author seems to break journalistic boundaries.

Love and Other Ways of Dying is a collection that showcases P ...more

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Feb 23, 2015 Erin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I was teetering between giving this book 2 or 3 stars because it really just did not thrill me. But I decided on 3 stars because some of the stories were beautifully written and interesting nonetheless.

I won’t pretend like I requested the book for any other reason than it looked interesting and I love free books. I had absolutely no idea who Michael Paterniti was and by the time I got the book to read I had actually f I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I was teetering between giving this book 2 or 3 stars because it really just did not thrill me. But I decided on 3 stars because some of the stories were beautifully written and interesting nonetheless.

I won’t pretend like I requested the book for any other reason than it looked interesting and I love free books. I had absolutely no idea who Michael Paterniti was and by the time I got the book to read I had actually forgotten what it was supposed to be about. So initially I began reading the book with absolutely no basis. I quickly remembered it was a book of essays but did not realize that it was a compilation of the author’s stories and magazine articles he had published over the last 2 decades. So initially I had a hard time getting into the essays, was a little bored, and didn’t quite understand the points he was trying to make with each story. Once I recognized that these were all true accounts and results of his journalism I enjoyed it a bit more. There were still some stories that I just wasn’t that into however and found myself flipping through them. Sometimes I felt that he was just storytelling and not really making any impactful points or eliciting any emotional response from me. Maybe this is the point of the essays, just to tell his stories, but I tend to want more from journalism. Michael Paterniti writes beautifully regardless of my interest in some of the stories. Sometimes his descriptions got away with him and I felt I lost the essence of the story and the people. Also, some essays were written in the second person narrative as though us, as the readers, were the character which I found hard to follow. But I will be honest in that I read most of these stories without any real knowledge of the people or the situations. Many that I did know about (Columbine, Haiti’s earthquake, Einstein’s brain) it was a treat experiencing it deeply with Paterniti. I also learned much more than I expected.

I would recommend some of the essays in the book and others not so much. If you’re looking for something easy to read that you can leave behind and come back to this is it. You can read some of it and skip some of it. I took a break from it for a little bit to finish another book and since it’s just a compilation of essays it’s perfect for that.

In case you’d like to know, the following essays are the ones I enjoyed from this book:
The Giant
The Accident
The Fifteen-Year Layover

The essays I had hard time getting through/skipped some parts:
Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow
American Hero
Most Dangerous Beauty
...more

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Sep 23, 2015 Blue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-thing, non-fiction, journalism

This collection of Paterniti's journalism articles on diverse subjects from downed flights to ingenious chefs to persistent immigrants has some fine examples of great long-form journalism. Paterniti has a knack for telling the story from the human point of view, sometimes even adding too much sentiment to call it just journalism, but a creative force that dissects and adds to what the eye can see, what the records show, what the eye witnesses can account for.

The Long Fall of Flight One-Eleven H This collection of Paterniti's journalism articles on diverse subjects from downed flights to ingenious chefs to persistent immigrants has some fine examples of great long-form journalism. Paterniti has a knack for telling the story from the human point of view, sometimes even adding too much sentiment to call it just journalism, but a creative force that dissects and adds to what the eye can see, what the records show, what the eye witnesses can account for.

The Long Fall of Flight One-Eleven Heavy focuses on a few people's lives after the flight comes down; a coroner who's in charge of recovery, a father who's compelled to move to the village on the coast of where the flight fell taking his daughter... On the lighter side, He Might Just be a Prophet offers vignettes of Paterniti's experiences with the infamous chef Ferran Adria and his now-closed restaurant El Bulli. Eating Jack Hooker's Cow, perhaps my favorite in this collection, is about too many things, but mainly about being American and being the Other. The Giant is another favorite, though harmlessly light-hearted on the surface, it is a deeply sad and touching story about the tallest, biggest man on Earth. Driving Mr. Albert, The Fifteen-Year Layover, and Mr. Nobody present main characters who are not very likable, who are, in one way or another, in bizarre situations, stuck, unable to move on, forget, or remember. There are articles about natural disasters (City of Dust, about the earthquake in Haiti, and The Man Who Sailed His House, about the tsunami in Japan), and about human disasters (11:20, a short article about Columbine shootings). There are articles in third person and those that put "you" right on the spot; the latter an interesting choice that some will like, and others won't. I personally liked it.

The collection is diverse, the writing is clear and smart, and the subject matter, whatever it may be, is always interesting. In terms of writing style, Paterniti aims to invoke memories and induce feelings from deep within the human mind (or soul, if you believe in that kind of thing), usually with a good level of success.

Recommended for those who like reading The New Yorker and longform.org and those who like putting strange things (mostly strange food) in their mouths. ...more

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Sep 10, 2016 Jennifer Doyle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sap

Like This American Life, but worldwide. Literary journalism, a term I hadn't ever heard (maybe that's weird?), but the blurb on the back described it this way and that's exactly what this is. Profound, chilling. Really well written. I'll be thinking of many of these essays for a long time.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I should probably mention that. ...more

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Jan 12, 2016 Tuck rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: wine-and-food, essays, europa, natural-history, books-about-books, oh-loyd-i-wanna-be-hearkbroken, music-and-other-700-s

a collection of paterniti's magazine articles/essays. he has a strong talent of conjuring up reader's empathy and twisting it tight like a dish rag so that one becomes invested in the most varied and strange tragedies and wonders. ...more

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Sep 20, 2017 exncgal added it · review of another edition

I only read the first few essays (and then got distracted by other books I'd been waiting to read) - airplane crash was heart wrenching but uplifting, El Bulli was good but odd, didn't like the Midwestern hotel. 3 stars based on what I did read. ...more

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Oct 31, 2018 Gaelen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

Some essays require skipping (there are a few about sports figures and people who delight in driving a species of bird to extinction), but those that remain are terrific. Collected over many years, even those that are now outdated are fascinating.

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Aug 15, 2017 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Amazing stories, amazing writing, amazing collection!

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Feb 06, 2018 Andrea Pins rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Melancholy but bright essays on love and mortality written in a way I can only describe as writing for writers. The word choice was poetic and heartbreakingly beautiful at times.

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Nov 19, 2015 Karna Converse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Whatever you call it—literary journalism, narrative nonfiction, or creative nonfiction—Michael Paterniti has been doing it for twenty years and for some of the biggest names in the magazine world (GQ, Esquire, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine). In Love and Other Ways of Dying, he introduces readers to 17 people and the places and events that made these interview subjects who they are. A collection of work like this can sometimes be monotonous to read, but I found the book riveting from page ...more

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Feb 10, 2015 Brian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I received a complimentary copy of this from goodreads and would like to say some words regarding it.

Devastating. Every story was gut-wrenching in the way that you feel that having a normal day is an affront to the incomprensible enormity of the mass of human suffering. His stories remind one that one can die at any moment and there's no way to prepare for it. Very little is okay for the people he describes and meets in this book and any pleasantness seems an offensive forgetting of their suffer ...more

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Aug 03, 2015 Kristen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Every single one of the essay stands alone as a great piece of literature, but together they create something more. Paterniti has transcended writing in a way that few others do. He has managed to capture the true depth of human emotion, pain and death, hunger, happiness, love, regret - not only does he capture it, but he presents it with appreciation and curiosity and humanity. Not to sound overly metaphorical, but I feel like this book could breathe, that's how human it is. Few stories have ma ...more

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Nov 13, 2015 Jenneffer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This author is really good at starting off making you wonder why in the world you're reading a story about baseball, then he starts developing the characters, and pretty soon, you're weeping because you lost your father. But it's not really you, but couldn't it be? I really really loved the audio version of these essays. I kept reminding myself that they are essays, because I was swept away like they were fictional short stories. I kept thinking I found my favorite, but now that I've heard them ...more

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Sep 25, 2015 Kirsti rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, road-trips, nonfiction, 2016, journalism

Superb journalism that is worth reading and rereading. My favorite is "Eating Jack Hooker's Cow" because it went in a different direction from what I had expected. ...more

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Jul 26, 2020 Patricia added it · review of another edition

Shelves: essay-collection

I'm not sure what prompted me to buy this book in 2012 and finally read during these past few months, but I'm so glad I discovered Paterniti. I read his exquisite essays slowly. There is no other way. Again and again I was astounded by how he was able to write about super difficult topics with beauty and sensitivity. A couple of times I was not certain I was going to be able to finish an essay, including the opening essay, "The Long Fall of Flight One-Eleven Heavy" and "Never Forget" about the K ...more

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Oct 13, 2020 Brian Alan S rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a peculiar set of essays with the most unthinkable of topics! It opens up strange and haunting realities. You will get a glimpse into the life of a giant who is eight feet four inches (and still growing!), be introduced to the person who stole Albert Einstein’s brain and the suicide catcher at Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. You will learn about a controversial anatomy book that was made during World War 2 (creepy!) and Cambodia’s dark time of the Khmer Rouge.

The writing is mesmerising. I ...more

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Jan 18, 2021 Christina Gottwalt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A unique and refreshing collection of essays about people and life. Some of the historical events are well-known (the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) and some are just small snippets of everyday life (the Astro motel). The real beauty of these essays, however, is their voice---regular, everyday people. Michael Paterniti goes out of his way to bring us the human race, unglorified, unknown, and unpredictable. Other than Albert Einstein, Thurman Munson, and Francois Mitterrand, you will likely recognize n ...more

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Mar 10, 2017 Kathie Harper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Fair warning, this collection of essays is not an easy read. In fact, they would be more palatable if they were read in small doses as they were initially meant to be read, solitary and in various publications. I agree with the reviewer who said they are about death but then who would buy the book if the title was reversed: Death and Other Ways of Loving. Like in most collections, some of them are better than others or are more suited to the reader's personal taste and interest. If I were to pic Fair warning, this collection of essays is not an easy read. In fact, they would be more palatable if they were read in small doses as they were initially meant to be read, solitary and in various publications. I agree with the reviewer who said they are about death but then who would buy the book if the title was reversed: Death and Other Ways of Loving. Like in most collections, some of them are better than others or are more suited to the reader's personal taste and interest. If I were to pick a favorite, it would have to be "The Man Who Sailed His House," about a Japanese man who was caught in the Tsunami of 2011 and only survives the disaster by holding onto the metal roof of his house while being thrown around in the sea. He survives and suffers so much loss, esp. his wife. He eventually regroups and finds purpose by sweeping the streets near his new home. But somehow is never able to sweep away the memories of his lost wife and life.

These seventeen essays resonate with so much emotion, mostly due to the skilled writing of the author who draws the reader in with his finely crafted prose and lyrical descriptions. Even though these are non-fiction one can intuit Paterniti's training as a fiction writer. I was fortunate to hear him speak at a literary conference as he lives in Portland, Maine and could sense his personal investment and curiosity as he shared his process, what intrigued him about pursuing the different stories, and his emotional response to the experiences. He is drawn to people on the margins like the nine foot giant in the Ukraine or the unspeakable like the genocide in Cambodia. All I could think of when reading some of them is "man's inhumanity to man," how can people be so cruel. We could just leave it there. But what redeems these essays is Paterniti's ability to find the resilience, the compassion, the hope, and the love that can exist even in the direst of circumstances.

My horizons have been expanded after reading this book and thanks to Paterniti I've born witness to people who might have disappeared into the shadows because there was no one there to tell their story. ...more

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Sep 24, 2018 Rita Ciresi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I always learn something new and interesting about the world--but also about the author--when I read Michael Paterniti's essays. Many of the pieces in this collection marry investigative journalism with personal essay. Some of my favorites were "The Long Fall of Flight One-Eleven Heavy," (about a tragic plane wreck that morphs into a gorgeous, lyric meditation on the fate of souls), "The Accident" (concerning the long-term effects of the death of a high school friend in a car wreck)-- "The Suici ...more

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Apr 23, 2020 Joanna Dean rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I bought this book because I liked the cover and the title; I did not know who the author was, which I am surprised about. The book is pretty much about different deaths. When I read the first story, I thought it was fiction, and didn't really care for it, but as I read the rest, I realised that they're all true, and this made them all pretty fascinating. I Googled 99% of the people who were the stories' subjects, and that made it even more interesting. Some of them were terribly depressing, and ...more

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About Michael Paterniti

Michael Paterniti

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Michael Paterniti won the 1998 National Magazine Award for his article "Driving Mr. Albert," which was first published in Harper's Magazine. A former executive editor of Outside, his work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Details, and Esquire, where he is writer-at-large. He lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife and son. ...more

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Shankar Vedantam, of 'Hidden Brain,' on Using Your Delusions

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“Perhaps we really are surrounded by the past, made prisoners of it. No matter how far we travel, how hard we try to forget, the scarred tree forever stands by the side of the road, if only in our minds. The only way to drive by is to set the past straight, once and for all, by remembering.” — 5 likes

“Laughing brings out the good in food. It’s good to laugh. If you don’t laugh, you’re going to magnify. And if you magnify, you’re going to die.” — 1 likes

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