“A lush book. . . . Astonishing. . . . Weschler may be the finest writer in the United States.” –
LA WeeklyA
San Francisco Chronicle and
San Jose Mercury News Best Book of the Year
A
Bloomsbury Review Editors’ Favorite
“There’s no writer alive with more raw and contagious enthusiasm for the world. . . . Ravishing and utterly life-emboldening.” –Dave Eggers
“Miraculous. . . . Excellentric. . . . Electrically precise. . . . Endlessly nuanced. . . . Layered. Mischievous. Faceted. Fun. . . . Weschler inspires envy.” –
The New York Observer“Startling. . . . Promiscuously eclectic. . . . Weschler is an impossibly wide-ranging writer [and] a master of the journalistic profile.” –
Chicago Tribune“Lambent. . . . Vivid. . . . Filigreed and moving. . . . A gorgeous collection.” –
San Francisco Chronicle“Lively and provocative. . . . Wonderfully illuminating. . . . A surprising smorgasbord of delights. . . . [Weschler is] an erudite, enthusiastic observer of life.” –
Los Angeles Times“Absorbing. . . . Weschler . . . has an unbeatable eye–and heart and writerly panache–for human oddity and invention.” –
Entertainment Weekly“Luminous. . . . Exquisite. . . . Weschler is a master of the short form. . . . [He] pokes around in odd corners but always finds great stories of human experience. . . . [He] finds the ‘edge’ and freezes it for us in finely-sharpened prose.” –
The Oregonian“Weschler is a national treasure . . . that rare cultural commentator whose keenly off-center perspectives and interests bring new meaning to the idea of ‘the pleasure of the text.’ ” –
The Bloomsbury Review“Like a postmodern Scheherazade . . . Weschler spins yarns about everything under the sun. . . . [He has] a keen eye for connecting the dots we mere mortals can’t, or won’t, see . . . and writes generous prose that allows the reader to share in the author’s serendipitous discoveries.” –
Austin Chronicle“Weschler is a writer one wants to reads irrespective of what he is writing about. His marvelous essays are models of clarity of thought and subtlety of feeling–and vice-versa.
Vermeer in Bosnia is nothing less than a sustained advertisement for the life of the mind.” –Geoff Dyer, author of
Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It“A goldmine of excellent writing.” –
Santa Cruz Sentinel“Brilliant. . . . Engrossing. . . . Compelling. . . . The essays . . . display a tremendous breadth and depth. . . . By simply connecting the dots, he creates a picture that others might not see. . . . Few readers can remain indifferent to Weschler’s work.” –
St. Petersburg Times“The Urban piece alone, was, for me, worth the price of admission.” –David Byrne
“Graceful and illuminating.” –
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
“A writer of wide-ranging passions from the quirky to the crucial. . . . Weschler [is] a literary renaissance and reconnaissance man keen on collecting and connecting, effectively reconciling and interrelating apparent disparities and disjunctions.” –
San Diego Union Tribune“From his sad sanity on Yugoslavia’s aftermath, to the most endearing argument for L.A. since the Beach Boys, Weschler gets around–though the holy-moly roadside attraction here is the author’s landmark brain.” –Sarah Vowell, author of
Take the Cannoli“Inspiring. . . . With his densely textured consciousness, coupled with a curiosity that can only be called protean, [Weschler] may be the most civilized staff writer
The New Yorker ever lost. . . . Most consistently winning of all is that
echt capacity of the literate soul: the ability to juggle incongruities without twitching.” –
The New York Observer“Rich. . . . Enchanting. . . . A smart melding of thought and feeling. . . . Weschler shows great mind-eye coordination. He sees and he thinks, and what he thinks is revelatory.” –
Detroit Free Press “Off-the-charts, happy/sad feeling, dark in the winter brilliant in the springtime crazy book! Big Polish ears and shaky furniture, are you joy today? Suntory time.” –Mark Salzman, author of
Lying Awake“Weschler [is] one of the best writers in the country. . . . To me [he] is like Ray Charles; he puts his own soulful stamp on anything that beckons him, and something moves me in almost everything he does. . . . What sets Weschler apart is the utterly fresh and unexpected connections he makes as he digs ever deeper into a subject.” –Pamela Feinsilber,
San Francisco Magazine
