FREE delivery December 22 - 28. Details

Or fastest delivery December 20 - 22. Order within 15 mins. Details

Arrives before Christmas

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to listen? Try Audible.

[{"displayPrice":"$15.71","priceAmount":15.71,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"15","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"71","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"sRUrrkhFmiadQ4ftcsXUAuTg0Fp1qro7%2BhhceybgtCpRngzMaJJ%2Bzh1%2FdL%2F37EbpUAopRRFuSSEFjGnZumTNtAoBcCDhMOUGR6dpTx1atNTLSBNucSED%2F0F6j%2BxoZgLI8LRW6xWHz3V65aWJA%2BiKSlHGjv35dalryCopX3S%2Bbrjk7iedb7BhDw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$8.39","priceAmount":8.39,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"8","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"39","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ThPMkLYkPWoewGtqHOqO0%2BC0Q2S0EoiL%2FBBaCnI%2BjI6xH3Jf8kBC8H5Gi%2BbzcgjcoLpYoKa3kH3CFv5F%2FXs2esaI1CKWzZqKbbEMj4id9fd4H6uACnr6IPA1BIhLxSOQF5qGBOuMGF62LfCNTyK3MojJkjyfIn75qSpJDR5%2B5uwuZAbBePvt0WDLy74PK5YS","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$15.71 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

kozybooks85

Sold by

kozybooks85

Details

Ships from

kozybooks85

Sold by

kozybooks85

Return policy: Returnable until Jan 31, 2023

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Thursday, December 22 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon. Order within 11 hrs 15 mins

Arrives before Christmas

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Martistore

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$15.71
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: 35Smyrna

Added

Not added

$11.73
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: pearlbook

Added

Not added

$16.00
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: YourOnlineBookstore

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Eula Biss

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays Paperback – February 3, 2009

by Eula Biss (Author)

126 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

3,600 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Library Binding

"Please retry"

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.79

$6.59

$4.00

Paperback, February 3, 2009

$15.71

$11.73

$1.17

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$11.89

$10.52

—

There is a newer edition of this item:

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
$13.79
(126)
In Stock.

Enhance your purchase

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize

A frank and fascinating exploration of race and racial identity

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies. Eula Biss explores race in America and her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays -- teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting for an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago's most diverse neighborhood.

As Biss moves across the country from New York to California to the Midwest, her essays move across time from biblical Babylon to the freedman's schools of Reconstruction to a Jim Crow mining town to post-war white flight. She brings an eclectic education to the page, drawing variously on the Eagles, Laura Ingalls Wilder, James Baldwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Joan Didion, religious pamphlets, and reality television shows.

These spare, sometimes lyric essays explore the legacy of race in America, artfully revealing in intimate detail how families, schools, and neighborhoods participate in preserving racial privilege. Faced with a disturbing past and an unsettling present, Biss still remains hopeful about the possibilities of American diversity, "not the sun-shininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it."

Print length

230 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Graywolf Press
Publication date

February 3, 2009
Dimensions

5.78 x 0.71 x 8.2 inches
ISBN-10

9781555975180
ISBN-13

978-1555975180
See all details

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

by Eula Biss Paperback
$15.71
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by kozybooks85.
Get it Dec 22 - 28
by Eula Biss Paperback
$16.00
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Friday, Dec 23
by Eula Biss Paperback
$17.00
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Thursday, Dec 22

Eula Biss
284
Paperback
32 offers from $7.99
Eula Biss
481
Paperback
Editors' pickBest History
119 offers from $1.81
Leslie Jamison
338
Paperback
Editors' pickBest Biographies & Memoirs
166 offers from $1.18
Deborah Tall
12
Paperback
20 offers from $3.61
Jenny Boully
25
Paperback
25 offers from $8.36
Michael Ondaatje
319
Paperback
147 offers from $1.35

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Expository writing should always be this compelling, provocative, and intelligent. Biss explores race in America through multiple lenses, examining common issues through uncommon situations and events. She flawlessly weaves present-day experiences with historical research to create 13 essays that combine narrative appeal with fascinating facts. In "Time and Distance Overcome," the telephone pole is used to juxtapose lynching with technological intrusions and advancements. "Back to Buxton" examines the successes, sorrows, and current implications of a racially integrated mining camp in the early 1900s. The book closes with "All Apologies," which explores both the significance and opposing insignificance of national and personal statements of apology. Biss has a talent for pointing out hypocrisy without accusations. Her ability to expose seemingly subtle inequities and injustices forces readers to analyze their own actions, decisions, and relationships. Teens will find this collection both accessible and challenging, and English and social-studies teachers will find multiple ways to use these essays to enhance instruction. Whether students examine the author's craft or analyze historical and social relationships, many will take pleasure in seeing the world through a unique and refreshing perspective.—Lynn Rashid, Marriotts Ridge High School, Marriottsville, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Two of the qualities that make Eula Biss’s essays in Notes from No Man’s Land compelling and beautiful are precision and independence―independence from orthodoxies of the right and left and the conventions of literary essays and their displays of sensibility and sensitivity. And whatever topic she takes up she dissects and analyzes with startling insight that comes from deep reading and original thinking. She’s important to this moment, important to opening up what essays can be, important for setting a standard of integrity and insight, and she’s also a joy to read."―Rebecca Solnit

“Biss is telling us the story of our country--one we never saw coming.”―The Chicago Tribune

“Eula Biss' Notes From No Man's Land is the most accomplished book of essays anyone has written or published so far in the 21st century. . . . Notes From No Man's Land is the kind of book that rewards and even demands multiple readings. It provokes, troubles, charms, challenges, and occasionally hectors the reader, and it raises more questions than it answers. It is strident and brave in its unwillingness to offer comfort, and, unlike all but a handful of the best books I have ever read, it is unimpeachably great.”―Salon

“[Notes From No Man's Land] is a beautiful exercise in consciousness; in bringing both intelligence and experience to bear on a subject that has implications for the way one behaves in the world.”―Los Angeles Times

“Biss' pairings of ideas, like those of most original thinkers, have the knack of seeming brilliant and obvious at the same time . . . forceful, beautiuful essays.”―NPR

“Biss's examination of America's complicated racial heritage offers penetrating insight.”―Time Out New York

“Powerful essays on the nature of identity, national and racial and personal. . . . Containing the music and force of [Biss's] singular thought.”―Orion Magazine

“[A] wondrous book. Biss muses on the conquest and subjugation that underpins the American dream, offers anecdotes from her own life, and commentary both general and specific, sometimes intimate. She begins in one place and confidently leads somewhere unexpected. She picks and worries at the idea of race in America ― incarceration, education, social welfare. . . . Lyrical she may be, but she is also exhilaratingly bold.”―The Spectator (UK)

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1555975186
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Graywolf Press; Original edition (February 3, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 230 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781555975180
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1555975180
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.78 x 0.71 x 8.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #860,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,942 in Essays (Books)
- #35,611 in Social Sciences (Books)

Customer Reviews:
126 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Eula Biss

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Eula Biss (born circa 1977) is an American non-fiction writer.

She won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award,the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. She is an editor at Essay Press.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Slowking4 (Own work) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

5 star		75%
4 star		11%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Ed Juillard🌻👀☮️

Brilliant Travelogue Of Living Presently

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

Award winning book for a reason - evocative LIBERATING read of a person encountering the many dimensions of life in America in 2022.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 29, 2013

Verified Purchase

`Time and Distance Overcome,' the first essay in "Notes from No Man's Land" traces the invention of the telephone and use of telephone poles to explore America's history of racism. It's an interesting, unusual and provocative way to approach the issue.

Eula Biss successfully uses her odd ball juxtapositions in many essays, which all focus on class and race inequalities. She also takes great pains to let readers know that she, despite being a privileged, highly educated and successful white woman, is not like most of her race, who largely come across as unsympathetic and callous towards poor minorities.

The author is well-meaning, imaginative and her message resonates with me, since I'm a member of the black race that she so fiercely champions (she also goes to bat for other minorities). But, Biss begins to sound tiresome as she struggles with her white identity and a good many other issues over which she had, and has no control.

For instance, in "All Apologies," she writes: "The year I turned thirty, I wrote to the friend who taught me the first rule of catch and apologized for being young once. My friend did not respond." I read that and wondered if the friend found her apology as annoying as I did.

In a 10 page essay called `Land Mines,' she comes down hard on anything to do with the NYC public schools (except the kids), including most teachers: "Many of the teachers I worked with tended to regard the parents of their students with either pity or contempt. These parents, I was reminded on many occasions, were neglectful, or addicted, or abusive, or simply ignorant."

Later, in `Notes,' she says: "If this essay (Land Mines) fails to dwell on the love and integrity with which most teachers approach their work, that is only because this strikes me as already obvious." If you interpret `Land Mines' as evidence of bias and callousness in the school system (and I assume she wants us to believe all her essays are evidential), then it is not at all obvious.

I thought she tucked the `Land Mine' note onto the end of the book, because she is a well-meaning person. But Biss is also a writer. To have implied that she was feeling any love from her colleagues, while struggling as a new teacher, would not have neatly fit into her theme of how poor, minority children get shafted. By Terry Baker Mulligan, author of "Sugar Hill Where the Sun Rose Over Harlem."

23 people found this helpful

Helpful

love books and music

Nonfiction essays without finger-pointing.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 5, 2010

Verified Purchase

One of the best books I've read in the last few years, Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Biss is educational, provocative, sensitive and hard to put down.
Essays that have an intentionality, but without an argumentative tone, which opens the narrative up to new directions and takes the reader by surprise in a refreshing way. I found it compelling to read it front to back, not to dip in and out. The final chapter is notes on each of the essays and some of her motivations for researching them.

I have read that this type of writing is called "braided narrative" or lyric essays. She weaves the historical information that she has researched into a narrative, and it engaged me immediately. I think these essays are more accessible to a wide variety of readers in part due to her use of fascinating details hinged to something current and easily relevant. Eula Biss' voice has an aliveness to it.

How is it that only three people have reviewed this book on amazon? I bought several copies to give as high school graduation gifts and for close friends. The autobiographical aspects, when she integrates them into her work, were evocative and invited me into her life in a way that felt intimate, but not in such a way that it detracted from the whole. Reading these essays, especially after I finished and was reflecting on them, sometimes left me stunned, speechless, inspired, and quietly aware of themes in our country about race that I was oblivious to before. Consciousness in action.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

I believe that I will never fell like that again--so raw and so moved

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

Eula Biss has a way of entering a topic by a side road--telephone poles, The Little House on the Prairie, or Babylon--and cutting a dilatory track, ferreting out sensitive pockets on the way through. Touching down in New York, Iowa, and California, she regularly locates the nerve end of an injustice, not moralizing, just picking up and examining the articles of her experience, interpreting them, stringing them fragment by fragment until a pattern forms. In that way, her essays remind me a bit of Paul Valery's meditations on shells. Her handling of unpleasant cultural realities in America is performed with a lucid and soft-spoken attention. Her language is subdued but occasionally striking, as in this: "Every nerve in my body was electrified by New York. I was on an endless sidewalk surrounded by bare bulbs and whistles and sudden flocks of pigeons and huge fading stretches of concrete. I believe that I will never fell like that again--so raw and so moved." She has a way of pinning down startling axioms: "Our willingness to believe the news is, in many cases, not entirely innocent". I feel grateful to have discovered her work and hopeful about her future writing.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Chelsea

Very engaging.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

If I didn't have to stop to take care of my children, I would have read this book in one sitting. I appreciate her gentle writing style and ability to see beauty in otherwise pretty terrible situations. I learned a few new things from this book. But mostly, for me, it was a deeper look and a confirmation of things I felt were true. I read this book after reading an excellent article she wrote about vaccines published in Harper's. Then a few days later I was searching online for information about Laura Ingells Wilder and racism, as I prepare to read the Little House on the Prairie books to my daughter, and I came across one of the essays from this book on her website. All of it is very interesting. These are emotionally charged subjects and while she makes her own feelings clear, she doesn't cram them down your throat.

One of the other reviewers mentions reading the Joan Didion essay "goodby to all that" about NYC (available online) which Eula Biss rewrites in this book. I also highly recommend reading the original. The rewritten version is fantastic.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

M. G. Azevedo

Graywolf's Nonfiction Prize for 2008

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 5, 2010

Verified Purchase

Provocative and lyric essays about race and about living today in America, each essay shows Eula Biss deadly accuracy.

Most of them are provocative, takes reader by surprise and make us think and reflect on them long time after finished the book.

One of them, "Good Bye to all that", is about New York and an honest argument to the essay Joan Didion wrote years ago with the same title about New York city. For the most part of it Biss took Didion's sentences structures, changing the words, and other times took both the structure and the words, changing the meaning, and it's amazing. Even if you don't know Didion essay -- that is free in the Internet ([...] Biss essay on NY it's an amazing piece of prose

In the final chapter Biss discusses what inspired many of the essays included in the book and in the end the judges's afterwords explain the choice of the book as the winner of Graywolf's Nonfiction Prize for 2008.

3 people found this helpful

Shopper

5 Stars!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

I wasn't expecting Amazon to force me into writing a review. I just wanted to click on the fifth star so I could add to the number of other people who also clicked five starts for this book. I doubt anyone would have read my review of this book had I taken the time to write one. But trust me. It's a good one.

Amazon Customer

Great!

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

Fast delivery, great book

See all reviews