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The New Kings of Nonfiction |
Author: Ira Glass
Published: 2007-10-02 |
List price: $15.00
Our price: $9.99
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As of: November 20th, 2008 04:35:03 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Where Old is New and a Queen can be a King
It must have been opposite day when this collection's title was chosen, because by my calculations, the average original publication date of this potpourri on persons, politics, poison, and poker is 1998. And two of its authors are women.
The (fourteen) articles themselves are a mixed bag, so it's likely that every reader will find at least one story ("The Hostess Diaries" - the misbehavior of celebrities at a trendy restaurant) or subject ("Among the Thugs" - maniacal soccer fans) to dislike and the same that he or she will at least be glad to have read, like the informative "Power Steer" (about the beef industry). They range from short beach reads requiring little more than a high school-level reading ability ("THD"), to those best tackled wearing your best thinking cap ("Losing the War" - which both shattered my illusions of and piqued my interest about the Battle of Midway) or at least a good understanding of the subject ("Fortune's Smile: World Series of Poker"). Several concern specific persons: Jonathan Lebed (fifteen-year-old charged with stock-market fraud), Saddam Hussein ("Tales of the Tyrant"), Lois Weisberg (eccentric, elderly, chain-smoker with a surprising number of important personal connections), Harold Shapinsky (abstract expressionist impoverished painter gains fame late in life), Christian Scientist actor Val Kilmer, and radio talk-show host (and user of the "n" word) John Ziegler. A few are funny, including: "The American Man, Age Ten" (the life of a typical ten-year-old boy), and "My Republican Journey" (gay Democrat wreaks havoc with the Republican party), while some, like "Toxic Dreams" (litigation involving haphazardous waste dumping in a small CA town with a Dickensian slant) are more serious. But there is nothing "new" about them. Researching the subjects on-line today, you'll find: Mr. Shapinsky died, tragically, of Alzheimer's, on January 31, 2004; Jonathan Lebed, now 23, has his own website; John Ziegler's job title of the story is now preceded by "former;" the status of the The Stringfellow Acid Pits (the subject of an article written in 1999) as of May 2008, is available, titled Stringfellow Superfund Site Project Update, through the State of CA; and the restaurant/setting of "The Hostess Diaries" is now closed. The best of the book is that proceeds of its sale go to a literacy program. The worst is that the stories are old: the most recent original publication date being 2005, the least recent, 1985. Other good non-fiction reads: 102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.
 Great reading and so much fun
The stories is this book are not only interesting and well-written, they also provide a lot of useful information and some great cocktail party conversation tidbits.
Collected For A Purpose
I love This American Life on NPR and was excited to discover this collection of essays assembled by the intelligent and original Ira Glass. I have always loved the viewpoint in Ira's broadcasts and looked forward to discovering the essays and writers he considered worthwhile.
This is an excellent collection of non-fiction. I won't use the term "literary non-fiction" because Ira Glass hates the term. (...I'm a snob when it comes to that phrase. I think it's for losers. It's pretentious, for one thing, and it's a bore. Which is to say, it's exactly the opposite of the writing it's trying to describe.)
I will agree with other reviewers here that complained that they came across some of these essays before and therefore the collection did not seem fresh. Ira writes that "some of the stories are very well known" but were included because the writers were trying to document remarkable experiences and the stories were "built around original reporting of one sort of another." You should view the stories in this book as a whole, even if you might have come across a few of them before. There is merit in assembling these stories in a collection which becomes evident after you finish the book. This story collection works because Ira is able to spot that certain something in a story or style or reporting that is original-but not novel, entertaining-but humane. You're purchasing the vision of Ira Glass in The New Kings of Non-Fiction and it's worth every penny if it were quadruple the price.
Stories included:
Johnathan Lebed's Extracurricular Activities - Michael Lewis
Toxic Dreams: A California Town Finds Meaning In An Acid Pit - Jack Hitt
Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg - Malcolm Gladwell
Shapinsky's Karma - Lawrence Weschler
The American Man, Age Ten - Susan Orlean
Among The Thugs - Bill Buford
Crazy Things Seem Normal, Normal Things Seem Crazy - Chuck Klosterman
Host - David Foster Wallace
Tales of the Tyrant - Mark Bowden
Losing The War - Lee Sandlin
The Hostess Diaries: My Year At A Hot Spot - Coco Hensen Scales
My Republican Journey - Dan Savage
Power Steer - Michael Pollan
Fortune's Smile: World Series of Poker - James McManus
I'd also recommend The Best American Essays 2007 (The Best American Series (TM)) edited by David Foster Wallace. Another good collection of stories by an editor with excellent taste.
 Not a particularly fresh selection.
It's deja lu all over again.
This is not the superb collection I would expect from Ira Glass. In fact, it's an odd collection all round - the puzzling question is why it exists at all.
Don't get me wrong. The quality of most of the contributions to this anthology is very high. But most of the pieces are not new. Glass describes his selection criterion: "most of the stories in this book come from a stack of favorite writing that I've kept behind my desk for years". What does this yield?
Michael Lewis on Jonathan Lebed (the 15-year old who was sued for white-collar crime by the SEC).
Malcolm Gladwell: Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg.
Chuck Klosterman interviewing Val Kilmer.
David Foster Wallace on right-wing talk radio.
Michael Pollan on buying a cow.
Susan Orlean: The American Man, Age Ten.
James McManus on playing in the World Series of Poker.
Mark Bowden on Saddam Hussein.
and stories by Jack Hitt, Dan Savage, Lawrence Weschler, Lee Sandler and Bill Buford.
The problem is that most of the pieces in the book have appeared in print before, not once, but twice. For instance, Gladwell's piece - which is indeed a delight to read - first appeared in The New Yorker, then again in his book "The Tipping Point". Similarly, the pieces by Orlean and Weschler first appeared in The New Yorker and were subsequently republished in books by their authors. David Foster Wallace's story was first published in The Atlantic, and subsequently appeared again in the collection "Consider the Lobster". Pollan's work first appeared in The New York Times, and then again in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma". And so on. I haven't checked, but given the general proliferation of anthologies these days (each year there are the 'best essays', 'best business writing', 'best nonrequired reading', 'best science and nature writing', and The new Yorker has taken to publishing its own anthologies as well), it wouldn't surprise me if some of these pieces have been further anthologized.
Thus, operationally, Ira's selection criterion seems to amount to choosing pieces that have been published at least twice before.
My favorite pieces: the article on Jonathan Lebed, Gladwell's piece, Foster Wallace on right-wing radio, and Klosterman's interview of Val Kilmer. At the other end of the spectrum, the article about poker was a tedious, self-indulgent bore. Finally, and this says more about me than about the quality of the essays, I couldn't manage to make myself finish Lee Sandlin's article about World War II, nor could I bring myself to care about Bill Buford's exploits with British soccer hooligans.
4.5 stars for the quality of the entries, 2.5 stars for their originality. I've rounded the resulting average of 3.5 up to 4 stars.
Yay for Ira
Ira Glass knows how to pick and choose. I am a huge fan of This American Life, and this book has great stories, stories I may not have found or paid attention to, but since they're recommended by Ira, I have read and appreciated them. The stories are very interesting, and give insight into our world, from a boy's dealings with the stock market . . . and the law, to what it is like to be around Sadaam Husain, to the outlook and feeling of being a 10-year-old boy from the subburbs.
And it's fun to read Ira's introduction to the stories - he kind of psyches you up for them, so you're excited and ready to read.
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