you are a little bit happier than i am [Paperback]

Tao Lin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2006

Reading Tao Lin's poetry is like looking the wrong way down Frank O'Hara's ear trumpet at a 21st century Mayakovsky IM-ing Lili Brik. It's fun, smart, manic and ecstatic; it puts on a clean shirt before it loads the gun.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tao Lin's you are a little bit happier than i am is poetry unadorned, offering a stark portrait of our modern world and its alienation. Pulling no punches, and drawing the reader in with seemingly simple statements, Tao Lin is one of the most inventive and insightful authors I have read this year. --www.largeheartedboy.com

Tao Lin's poetry collection gracefully proves the theorem that nothing can be truly sad if it isn t also funny...Lin's is a harsh, insular world of sadness (the word appears countless times throughout the slim volume), hopelessness and despondency. But for every ounce of drear and self-pity, Lin inserts an arresting aside: this poem has all this between each stanza / ...someone on the largest dose of tylenol cold in the history of the world falling off a sixty-story building at night." --Jeb Gleason-Allured, Timeout Chicago

Reading Tao Lin's you are a little bit happier than i am (Winner of the 2005 December Prize) is reminiscent of covertly eavesdropping on a private conversation over a cup of hallucinogen-spiked black coffee. The reader cannot help but feel a little like a transfixed interloper. The poems are powered by direct, confessional statements which reveal the interior life of a twenty-something year old who is an alternately suicidal and homicidal, infatuated, self-conscious and self-loathing, ambivalent observer/poet. --Aysha Somasundaram, Bookslut.com

From the Publisher

Reading Tao Lin's poetry is like looking the wrong way down Frank O'Hara's ear trumpet at a 21st century Mayakovsky IM-ing Lili Brik. It's fun, smart, manic and ecstatic; it puts on a clean shirt before it loads the gun.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Action Books; 1st edition (November 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097656923X
• ISBN-13: 978-0976569237
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > More Languages > Yiddish
  • #1 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > More Languages > Farsi
  • #98 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Aging > Depression

More About the Author

Tao Lin (b. 1983) is the author of six books of fiction & poetry. His writing has been published by GAWKER, NOON, VICE, THOUGHT CATALOG, ESQUIRE, THE STRANGER and he has been profiled by NYLON, SALON, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, NEW YORK OBSERVER, THE GUARDIAN. His third novel will be published by Vintage in 2013. He lives in Brooklyn. (Photo by Noah Kalina.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars !!!, December 24, 2007

By 

L. Frens - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: you are a little bit happier than i am (Paperback)

you can tell when you've been reading tao lin. you look at the world differently, you mood is different. its hard to describe, but its definitely worth reading.

52 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a little tiny bit racist., January 24, 2007

By 

Samuel Cole (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: you are a little bit happier than i am (Paperback)

ok. well.
this book started out a little strong.
i really wasn't expecting that.

i mean JESUS.

an AXE &a CELL PHONE?

too many things. too soon.

but then
it got a little racist
against spacemen.

and that's good
because i hate
spacemen.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely Enjoyable, April 3, 2008

By 

Yu-han Chao "www.yuhanchao.com" (Taiwan & USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: you are a little bit happier than i am (Paperback)

Motifs in _you are a little happier than i am_ include emails, fruit, hamsters, loneliness, beauty, and sadness--what would have been a difficult and problematic combination of objects and abstract terms in the hands of a less talented poet. Tao Lin, however, links these elements effectively with plain, frank language that conveys immediate feelings and observations, often with sympathetic or humorous results.

The surprising concerns in these poems range from the personal to what many readers may resonate with. For example, in the poem "thanksgiving," Lin writes:

i feel most comfortable around middle-class japanese people
i know they are all thinking the same things as me

WHY ARE THE LINES SO LONG?
WHY AM I IN NEW JERSEY?

though their faces appear calm
their thoughts are exactly like i just put them
(Lin)

It does not seem to matter here whether the people are middle-class Japanese or middle-class any-other-American-or-foreigner. Lin points out how anyone might feel in this situation: the lines are long, and (more philosophically) why New Jersey? The contrast between calm faces, yelling interior monologue, the poet himself and Japanese people proves humorous when one reads Lin's conclusion to the poem "we just want to get our food/ and eat it/...and go to sleep."

An uniquely enjoyable, highly recommended collection. Tao Lin's other books include Bed, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.