Author:David Foster Wallace
'One of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction' Sunday Times
'The most commanding and exciting and inventive rhetorical virtuosity of any writer alive... [He] nailed it like nobody else ever had' Jonathan Franzen
'[He was] first among us. The most talented, most daring, most energetic and original, the funniest... This man got inside the world's mind and changed it for the better' George Saunders
'Radical, impassioned, heart-and brain-stretching... His talent was so obviously great it confused people' Zadie Smith
Discover one of the most celebrated writers of our age - the visionary author of Infinite Jest andA Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again
From genre-defining reportage to genre-breaking fiction, David Foster Wallace captured the human experience as no-one else has - in all its multiplicity, sorrow and tenderness, wit and irony and deep, dazzling truth.
Penguin presents the very best of his collected fiction and nonfiction, including extracts from his most famous novels, short stories and iconic essays such as 'Consider the Lobster'. Alongside these classic pieces is exclusive, previously unpublished work, and critical contributions from twelve prominent authors and thinkers, all commissioned specifically for this collection.
One of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction
—— Sunday TimesA prose magician, Mr Wallace was capable of writing . . . about subjects from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humour and fervour and verve
—— Michiko Kakutani , The New York TimesA heady reminder of why we got hooked in the first place
—— Daily TelegraphGenuine objective journalism not only gets the facts right, it gets the meaning of events right. It is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by 'reliable sources' but by the unfolding of history. It is journalism that ten, twenty, fifty years after the fact still holds up a true and intelligent mirror to events
—— T.D. Allman(Ligotti uses) restrained, lyrical prose and subtly disturbing images that Poe himself might well have admired
—— USA TodayOrwell saw … that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power
—— Adam Gopnik , New Yorker[Orwell fought] the evils of the world and the weakness of his body to the day of his death, always striving, striving to tell the truth about what he saw and what he felt
—— Nicholas Walter , Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas