The Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Pale King and Infinite Jest weighs in on a philosophical controversy in this fascinating early work.In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but al...

Where do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here — with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range of great writers, critics, and those who worked with him most closely.This volume presents his most dazzling, funniest, and most heartbreaking work — essays like his famous cruise-ship piece, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," excerpts from his novels The Broom of the Sys...

The 30th anniversary edition of the virtuosic, wickedly comic modern classic about the pursuit of happiness in America, with a new foreword by Michelle Zauner, author of the New York Times bestselling sensation Crying in H Mart.“To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past fifty years. Catch-22 is one; this is the other.” —Stephen King, Entertainment WeeklySet in an addicts’ halfway h...

An expanded edition featuring new interviews and an introduction by the editor, a New York Times journalist and friend of the authorA unique selection of the best interviews given by David Foster Wallace, including the last he gave before his suicide in 2008. Complete with an introduction by Foster Wallace's friend and NY Times journalist, David Streitfeld. And including a new, never-before-published interview between Streitfeld and Wallace.

A celebrated 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

Beloved for his keen eye, sharp wit, and relentless self-mockery, David Foster Wallace has been celebrated by both critics and fans as the voice of a generation. In this hilarious essay, originally published in the collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, he chronicles seven days in the Caribbean aboard the m.v. Zenith. As he partakes in supposedly fun activities offered on the luxury tour, he offers riotous anecdotes and unparalleled insight into contemporary Americ...

After almost four decades in the music business, David Foster -- producer, arranger, songwriter, performer -- is finally ready to talk. In this compelling and outspoken memoir, Foster shares some of his incredible stories: the first time he met Barbra Streisand, as a young session player in Los Angeles; his first of 15 Grammys® for "After the Love Has Gone," Earth, Wind & Fire's memorable hit; the making of Unison, Celine Dion's English-language debut; the challenges he faced on his way to...

Monasteries and gaols: David Foster reflects that during the course of his life the monasteries have emptied while the gaols are doing nicely. Set in Goulburn and its surrounds, where Foster resides, The Contemptuary is a lament for a dying faith, a commentary on prison life and, perhaps unexpectedly from Foster in this, his sixteenth novel, an unputdownable whodunnit.'Attempt to characterise Foster's writing and eventually one will run out of adjectiv...

These widely acclaimed essays from the bestselling author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation.In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supp...

In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness -- a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his.These are worlds undreamt of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hi...

A PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTA hilarious, fearless, and original story about IRS employees confronting boredom, bureaucracy, and the strange difficulty of paying attention in everyday life, from the bestselling author of Infinite Jest**.****"breathtakingly brilliant" —**New York TimesThe agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly ...

From the author of Infinite Jest and Consider the Lobster**: a collection of five brilliant essays on tennis, from the author's own experience as a junior player to his celebrated profile of Roger Federer at the peak of his powers.**A "long-time rabid fan of tennis," and a regionally ranked tennis player in his youth, David Foster Wallace wrote about the game like no one else. On Tennis p...