Critical Compendium » The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, by David Shields
The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, by David Shields

“Just saying: You might want to be wary of a book in which the author reveals the exact size of his erect sex organ on Page 48. Those boys! It’s very much boys’ night out in David Shields’s catchily named new book, “The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead.” There is plenty not to like about this book, but here is what I did like: It is almost impossible to define. It is not exactly a memoir. A heart-tugging panegyric to father-son togetherness? Far from it. With its reams of statistics and biology textbook outtakes, it might fit into the voguish, ever-expanding category of “natural history,” e.g., “The Natural History of Love” or “The Natural History of Barbecue.” But “Life” is something more complex than a natural history of death. It is sui generis, and that’s high praise these days.” Read the review at the New York Times.

Filed under: Nonfiction | Posted 02.27.08 | Comments:


No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)



Main Menu
» HOME
» ABOUT

Search

An interview with Steve LeVine, author of The Oil and the Glory

"Big Oil is dying . . . The jury is out on whether the average consumer will be affected. The oil companies say with some justification that the state-owned companies don’t produce oil and natural gas as well as they – Big Oil – can. They say that means less and less supply – or at least not as much supply as might be expected – from these countries in the coming years. That’s important, especially since tight global supplies are one reason for $95-a-barrel oil right now." [ Read the rest of the interview ]



Subscribe
Via RSS 2.0
Via email

Bookmark with:



Archives
» April 2008
» March 2008
» February 2008
» January 2008
» December 2007
» November 2007
» October 2007
» September 2007