In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration ...

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...

These widely acclaimed essays from the besteselling 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 suppos...

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 DealerDo...

David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-si...

Fifteen brilliant, dazzling, never-before-collected nonfiction seminal essays and nonfiction pieces by bestselling author David Foster Wallace that explores tennis, literature, philosophy, and popular culture with his signature blend of intellectual depth, humor, and relentless curiosity.**"one of America's most daring and talented writers." —**Los Angeles Times Book ReviewNever has Wallace's seemingly endless curiosity been more e...

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 ...

**NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING JASON SEGAL AND JESSE EISENBERG, DIRECTED BY JAMES PONSOLDTAn indelible portrait of David Foster Wallace, by turns funny and inspiring, based on a five-day trip with award-winning writer David Lipsky during Wallace’s Infinite Jest tour**In David Lipsky’s view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace’s pieces for Harper’s magazine in the ’90s were, according to Lipsky, “like hearing for the f...

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon--Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an eraIn this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up wi...

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...

"[These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." —Los Angeles TimesSplit into five sections--Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering--Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals ...

Passionate, strong-minded nonfiction from the National Book Award-winning author of The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen's The Corrections was the best-loved and most-written-about novel of 2001. Nearly every in-depth review of it discussed what became known as "The Harper's Essay," Franzen's controversial 1996 investigation of the fate of the American novel. This essay is reprinted for the first time in How to be Alone, along with th...