David Shields

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (2010)

I love this book and am reviewing it here after reading it for a third time. I keep this book by the bed to open now and then and read a chapter, jumping in at random in a way I suspect Shields would appreciate. While I'm not nearly as skeptical as Shields regarding the value of fiction, I do app...

Private War of J. D. Salinger (2013)

When I started I hated the way it was written. Various quotes? How can that flow? It eventually worked out well but I bet I missed some context given that I didn't know many of those quoted and didn't want to spend time looking them up. Like others I liked Salinger's writings as a young adult so ...

Dead Languages (1998)

Not a review, but an issue that cam up while reading this book that I'm not quite sure of what to make. I read this novel after reading Shields's recent memoir "The Thing About Life is that One Day You'll be Dead" and noticed that there are about ten times where the exact same passages exist in ...

The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008)