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Jonathan Safran Foer

The Future Dictionary of America Hardcover – August 1, 2004

by Jonathan Safran Foer (Author, Editor), Nicole Krauss (Author, Editor), Dave Eggers (Author),

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This book was conceived by Safran Foer Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Dave Eggers as a way to bring over a hundred authors together to promote progressive causes in the November 2004 election. The book is an imagining of what a dictionary might look like about thirty years hence, when all of the world's problems are solved and our current president is a distant memory. The book is by turns funny, outraged, utopian, and dyspeptic.

Over 150 writers contributed to the book, including: Stephen King, Robert Olen Butler, Glen David Gold, Richard Powers, Susan Straight, Sarah Vowell, Billy Collins, C.K. Williams, Colson Whitehead, Donald Antrim, Jonathan Franzen, Edwidge Danticat, Edward Hirsch, Joyce Carol Oates, Katha Pollitt, Padgett Powell, Paul Auster, Anthony Swofford, Julia Alvarez, Susan Choi, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, and Art Spiegelman.

Hardcover editions of the book will also include a CD compilation, with all new songs by the best musicians working. Among them: David Byrne, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, Moby, Sleater-Kinney, Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, Yo La Tengo, Bright Eyes, They Might Be Giants, Elliott Smith, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Print length

250 pages
Language

English
Publisher

McSweeney's Books
Publication date

August 1, 2004
Dimensions

9.18 x 6.42 x 0.78 inches
ISBN-10

193241620X
ISBN-13

978-1932416206
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ McSweeney's Books; Book & CD edition (August 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 250 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 193241620X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1932416206
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.18 x 6.42 x 0.78 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,595,361 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #175 in Humor Literary Criticism (Books)
- #1,259 in Political Humor (Books)
- #7,357 in Essays (Books)

Customer Reviews:
20 ratings

About the author

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Jonathan Safran Foer

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Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the bestseller Everything Is Illuminated, named Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and the winner of numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize. Foer was one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year" and Esquire's "Best and Brightest." Foreign rights to his new novel have already been sold in ten countries. The film of Everything Is Illuminated, directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood, will be released in August 2005. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has been optioned for film by Scott Rudin Productions in conjunction with Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures. Foer lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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William Hoffknecht

Funny.

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2008

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The Future Dictionary is worth every penny and it is not that expensive. Also, it comes with a bonus CD that has some good bands and good tracks on it.
The definitions range from silly, serious, sad, thoughtful, and even just mean at times, but always funny and insightful.

Hundreds of writers and artists submitted work to put this book together and if you are a fan of McSweeneys, Dave Eggars, David Sedaris, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kurt Vonnegut, or any other great writer from this era, this is a book that you must have.

2 people found this helpful

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Heather Carlisle

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2014

Love it!

Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2004

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This book is a positive contribution to our current state of disunion in the United States. Yes, there are entries that look back at the Shrub administration with contempt, but others look at a positive future where we overcame the myopia, nepotism, and greed of the bushies. It is positive in itself that the future is there to write the entries. I would have given it 4 stars, but a reviewer that obviously did not read it compared it to Ann Coulter and only gave it one star. I am canceling out that vote. Thanks are owed to Foer, Eggers, et al. for their quality writing, work, and discerning eyes.

19 people found this helpful

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jane doe

dictionary

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2012

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The book was in fine shape, but it was supposed to include a CD. The CD was not in the package! very annoying!

Helpful

A mixed bag

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2009

This book was, as its preface states, thrown together in a couple of months so that it could be published before the 2004 election. Between the tight deadline and the dozens of contributors to this eclectic "dictionary," it's no wonder that the entries' tone is wildly inconsistent. Some authors have chosen to describe a utopian dream ("artgangs, n.: In 2018, when the United Nations became the world's chief governing power, the U.N. Arts Council recommended transferring 4% of each country's military budget to arts-in-the-schools programs..."), others a dystopian nightmare (see Jonathan Safran Foer's poignant definition of "death" from a future in which it has been cured). The only unifying theme is the authors' left-progressive political views and a somewhat charming naivete.

Some of the entries are clever, others are inane (including several coinages based on members of the Bush administration: "ashcroftian," "bushwhack," plus "condeeluusion," "condoleese," and "condoleesy"), and most are forgettable. My favorite is the entry on woman: "1. female human. 2. [archaic] naturally occurring carbon-based machine, with worldwide distribution, variably capable of domestic work, with the single perceptive universal function of converting semen to children." There are also a handful of absurd comics thrown in the middle, and an appendix that includes the Declaration of Independence, the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights alongside a Kurt Vonnegut essay and some absurd reference tables ("Shapes Between Letters"?). The lack of cohesiveness is fascinating--but only for so long.

Oh, and there's also a CD included with a handful of good songs. It's available separately as Future Soundtrack for America .

2 people found this helpful

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Jonathan Strawn

A Time Capsule for an Alternate Future

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2009

This book is a mixed bag, as you would expect from a book with dozens of contributors. Some of the entries are funny, some poignant, some political, some prescient. It makes for a varied experience paging through the hundreds of entries. My favorite entries are the ones that use their short space to tell a brief story, the imagined "history" of a word. This sort of micro-fiction is fun and just the right length. The bits that I hated were the entries that sprawl over several pages, eating up space and boring me with their length.

The most striking thing reading this book now is how grounded it is in 2004. For a book themed to be about the future many of these entries are specific to the past, or at the time the present. The least interesting, most dated entries are those about the "loss" of President Bush in the 2004 election. These seem, in hindsight, naive and foolish, as some engage in as ridiculous premises as President Bush's administration being charged with war crimes shortly after their electoral defeat and the economy immediately launching into the stratosphere with the election of a Democrat as President. Sadly laughable now.

Anachronistic predictions aside, the book is largely entertaining and fun. The only frustrating bit is that it is not easy to find entries by the same contributor. This would be nice as many contributors link their entries together into a larger tapestry. The CD that comes with it is a mixed bag again, but it has some good songs on there.

2 people found this helpful

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Barbara Serra

affarone, ma descrizione imprecisa

Reviewed in Italy on September 6, 2013

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Il prezzo era un vero affare, purtroppo non era segnalata la mancanza del cd allegato. Probabilmente l'avrei ugualmente comprato, e non sarei rimasta delusa scoprendolo. Peccato!

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The Future Dictionary of America Hardcover – August 1, 2004

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Jonathan Safran Foer

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