He never did much, but he • had two first cars, • went on three first dates with the same girl, • played in Yankee Stadium every summer, • made All-American without playing a single down, • grew three feet in one day, and • played in the game of the century. It’s just part of being an ordinary guy having the time of his life growing up in a small town. Join the fun! Read the book! Enjoy life!

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory.” —Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe In this “rich, complex family saga” (USA Today) full of long-buried family secrets, Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, blithely ignorant of all that awaits them. By 2016, they have four radically different daughters, each in a state of unrest. Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. With the unexpected arrival of young Jonah Bendt—a child placed for adoption by one of the daughters fifteen years before—the Sorensons will be forced to reckon with the rich and varied tapestry of their past. As they grapple with years marred by adolescent angst, infidelity, and resentment, they also find the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.

He never did much, but he - had two first cars, - went on three first dates with the same girl, - played in Yankee Stadium every summer, - made All-American without playing a single down, - grew three feet in one day, and - played in the game of the century. It's just part of being an ordinary guy having the time of his life growing up in a small town. Join the fun! Read the book! Enjoy life!

The book Grizzard was working on when he died, and contains what he thought represented the best of the last decade of his writing.

This is a mind bending, uplifting, transformation of, a cold seeming past, to the overturning into a beautiful new world where the past is atoned. The cruel struggles of the memories in the book only lead down a more, even yet, cruel undecided fate, which could become her last moments. Though, no time is to spare, in finding the whereabouts of her location in her abduction, she struggles forth. Forgetting herself, learning a path she never thought was possible, she finds her way through the darkness, being accompanied among the lost.

In this clear-eyed, candid, and ultimately reassuring