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Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

by David Foster Wallace Publisher: BACK BAY BOOKS

Critically Recognized

Essays that turn observation into inquiry

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Cleveland Plain Dealer praise

    The review praises the book as brilliantly entertaining and says it supports regarding Wallace as this generatio...

AlbakiReads Editorial

Essays that turn observation into inquiry

Across this collection, David Foster Wallace moves among food, politics, literary culture, language, and popular entertainment. The subjects include the ethics raised by lobster cooking, the spectacle of John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, disputes among dictionary writers, and encounters between adult-film performers and fans. These pieces pair reported events and cultural questions with broader reflections on pain, humor, and how people interpret one another. The range makes the collection a record of Wallace applying sustained attention to both public spectacles and everyday assumptions.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in literary essays that move across cultural and political subjects
  • Readers curious about questions of animal suffering, language, humor, and popular culture
  • Readers seeking nonfiction that combines reported events with reflection

Themes

Animal suffering and ethicsPolitics and public spectacleLanguage and literary cultureHumor and human behavior

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A collection of David Foster Wallace's witty and deeply observant essays exploring everything from lobster festivals and politics to the nature of human suffering, from the bestselling author of Infinite Jest. "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the Lobster proves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" --Cleveland Plain Dealer

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?

David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.

"Wallace can do sad, funny, silly, heartbreaking, and absurd with equal ease; he can even do them all at once." --New York Times
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