Customer Reviews

The Art of the Essay, 1999 (The Anchor Essay Annual Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I absolutely loved almost all the essays in the book: some of them were so engrossing, I got on the wrong train to work because I was too busy reading them. I find these eassys a bit more divrse then the "Best American Essays" and tighter than the ones in "The Pushcart Prize" collection. Phillip Lopate is a wonderful essayist in his own right, and he has chosen wisely.

This is a very rich collection of essays. Two of those which were of special interest to me were Jonathan Rosen's, "The Talmud and the Internet" which was later expanded into a book by that name. And Floyd Skoot's Kismet a most moving essay about his own family and his brother's death.
Lopate has a great understanding of the genre. He includes 'rediscoveries' Orwell 's "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad", and Derek Walcott's "The Antilles."

It's kind of like a bound collection of op-ed pieces...which I like...on topics I may never confront personally from a point of view hopefully as different from mine as it can get. Gotta disagree with the Bachelorhood assesment. I found his last collection Portrait of my Body to be more focused and more intimate written by a man who already has spent 25 years reviewing his life in print.

This is such a damn interesting book, filled with really inteligent inspiring voices. I think there is plenty of idiocy out there in Amazon land, but I'm sort of bummed to be writing the first review of the thing. Come on folks! Also, check out Lopate's Bachelorhood. A Gem of a book

OK, man, I'm gonna go read this book -- The five stars stand for your passionate, exasperated review!