David Foster Wallace Popular Books
David Foster Wallace Biography & Facts
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". Wallace grew up in Illinois and attended Amherst College. He taught English at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College. After struggling with depression for many years, he died by suicide in 2008, at age 46. Early life and education David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, to Sally Jean Wallace (née Foster) and James Donald Wallace. The family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where he was raised along with his younger sister, Amy Wallace-Havens. His father was a philosophy professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His mother was an English professor at Parkland College, a community college in Champaign, which recognized her work with a "Professor of the Year" award in 1996. From fourth grade, Wallace lived with his family in Urbana, where he attended Yankee Ridge Elementary School, Brookens Junior High School and Urbana High School. As an adolescent, Wallace was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He wrote about this period in the essay "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley", originally published in Harper's Magazine as "Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornadoes". Although his parents were atheists, Wallace twice attempted to join the Catholic Church, but "flunk[ed] the period of inquiry". He later attended a Mennonite church. Wallace attended Amherst College, his father's alma mater, where he majored in English and philosophy and graduated summa cum laude in 1985. Among other extracurricular activities, he participated in glee club; his sister recalls that he "had a lovely singing voice". In studying philosophy, Wallace pursued modal logic and mathematics, and presented in 1985 a senior thesis in philosophy and modal logic that was awarded the Gail Kennedy Memorial Prize and posthumously published as Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will (2010). Wallace adapted his honors thesis in English as the manuscript of his first novel, The Broom of the System (1987), and committed to being a writer. He told David Lipsky: "Writing The Broom of the System, I felt like I was using 97 percent of me, whereas philosophy was using 50 percent." Wallace completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Arizona in 1987. He moved to Massachusetts to attend graduate school in philosophy at Harvard University, but soon left the program. Later life In 2002, Wallace met the painter Karen L. Green, whom he married on December 27, 2004. Wallace struggled with depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicidal tendencies, and was repeatedly hospitalized for psychiatric care. In 1989, he spent four weeks at McLean Hospital—a psychiatric institute in Belmont, Massachusetts, affiliated with Harvard Medical School—where he completed a drug and alcohol detoxification program. He later said his time there changed his life. Dogs were important to Wallace, and he spoke of opening a shelter for stray canines. According to his friend Jonathan Franzen, he "had a predilection for dogs who'd been abused, and [were] unlikely to find other owners who were going to be patient enough for them". Abuse allegations In the early 1990s, Wallace was in a relationship with writer Mary Karr. She later described Wallace as obsessive about her and said the relationship was volatile, with Wallace once throwing a coffee table at her as well as physically forcing her out of a car, leaving her to walk home. Years later, she claimed that Wallace's biographer D. T. Max underreported Wallace's abuse. Of Max's account of their relationship, she tweeted: "That's about 2% of what happened." She said that Wallace kicked her, climbed up the side of her house at night, and followed her five-year-old son home from school. Work Career The Broom of the System (1987) garnered national attention and critical praise. In The New York Times, Caryn James called it a "manic, human, flawed extravaganza ... emerging straight from the excessive tradition of Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser, Thomas Pynchon's V., [and] John Irving's World According to Garp". In 1991, Wallace began teaching literature as an adjunct professor at Emerson College in Boston. The next year, at the suggestion of colleague and supporter Steven Moore, Wallace obtained a position in the English department at Illinois State University. He had begun work on his second novel, Infinite Jest, in 1991, and submitted a draft to his editor in December 1993. After the publication of excerpts throughout 1995, the book was published in 1996. In 1997, Wallace received a MacArthur Fellowship. He also received the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, awarded by editors of The Paris Review for one of the stories in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, which had been published in the magazine. In 2002, Wallace moved to Claremont, California, to become the first Roy E. Disney endowed Professor of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Pomona College. He taught one or two undergraduate courses per semester and focused on writing. Wallace delivered the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. The speech was published as a book, This Is Water, in 2009. In May 2013 parts of the speech were used in a popular online video, also titled "This Is Water". Bonnie Nadell was Wallace's literary agent during his entire career. Michael Pietsch was his editor on Infinite Jest. Wallace died in 2008. In March 2009, Little, Brown and Company announced that it would publish the manuscript of an unfinished novel, The Pale King, that Wallace had been working on before his death. Pietsch pieced the novel together from pages and notes Wallace left behind. Several excerpts were published in The New Yorker and other magazines. The Pale King was published on April 15, 2011, and received generally positive reviews. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times wrote that The Pale King "showcases [Wallace's] embrace of discontinuity; his fascination with both the meta and the microscopic, postmodern pyrotechnics and old-fashioned storytelling; and his ongoing interest in contemporary America's obsession with self-gratification and entertainment." The book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Throughout his career, Wallace published short fiction in periodicals such as The New Yorker, GQ, Harper's Magazine, Playboy, The Paris Review, Mid-American Review, Conjunctions, Esquire, Open City, Puerto del Sol, and Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. Themes and styles Wallace wanted to .... Discover the David Foster Wallace popular books. Find the top 100 most popular David Foster Wallace books.
Best Seller David Foster Wallace Books of 2024
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Up Up, Down Down
Cheston KnappIn the tradition of John Jeremiah Sullivan and David Foster Wallace, Cheston Knapp’s Up Up, Down Down “is an always smart, often hilarious, and ultimately transcendent essay collec...
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David Foster Wallace
Alessandro RaveggiSi può amare uno scrittore alla follia fino a non distinguerne più i tratti?David Foster Wallace è la luce scura di un’intera generazione di lettori internazionali e italiani: uno ...
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The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace
Ralph ClareBest known for his masterpiece Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace reinvented fiction and nonfiction for a generation with his groundbreaking and original work. Wallace's desire to...
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Magic Hours
Tom BissellAwardwinning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Heming...
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David Foster Wallace
D. T. MaxTraduit de l'anglais (ÉtatsUnis) par Jakuta Alikavazovic. David Foster Wallace est un personnage aux multiples facettes. Enfant précoce aux talents singuliers, il excelle au tenni...
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A Kierkegaardian Reading of David Foster Wallace
Matthew CamporaThis work explores the fiction of David Foster Wallace through frameworks developed by nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard to foreground the similarities in the...
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Monkeyluv
Robert M. SapolskyHow do imperceptibly small differences in the environment change one’s behavior? What is the anatomy of a bad mood? Does stress shrink our brains? What does People magazine’s list ...
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Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself
David LipskyNOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING JASON SEGAL AND JESSE EISENBERG, DIRECTED BY JAMES PONSOLDTAn indelible portrait of David Foster Wallace, by turns funny and inspiring, based o...
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The Broom of the System
David Foster WallacePublished when Wallace was just twentyfour years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outland...
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Short Stories in German
Ernst ZillekensThis new volume of eight short stories offers students of German at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature in the original, with the aid of par...
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Monument Maker
David KeenanIs it possible for books to dream? For books to dream within books? Is there a literary subterranea that would facilitate ingress and exit points through these dreams? These are so...
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Late to the Ball
Gerald MarzoratiAn awardwinning author attempts to become a nationally competitive tennis playerat the age of sixtyin this “soulful meditation on aging, companionship, and the power of selfimprove...
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Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
David Foster WallaceBeloved for his keen eye, sharp wit, and relentless selfmockery, David Foster Wallace has been celebrated by both critics and fans as the voice of a generation. In this hilarious e...
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Books Promiscuously Read
Heather Cass WhiteThe critic and scholar Heather Cass White offers an exploration of the nature of readingHeather Cass White’s Books Promiscuously Read is about the pleasures of reading and its powe...
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The Last Samurai
Helen DewittCalled “remarkable” (The Wall Street Journal) and “an ambitious, colossal debut novel” (Publishers Weekly), Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai is back in print at lastHelen DeWitt’s 2...
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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
David Foster WallaceIn this thoughtprovoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.Wallace's stori...
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The Gifts of Reading
Robert MacfarlaneFrom the bestselling author of UNDERLAND, THE OLD WAYS and THE LOST WORDS an essay on the joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a bookEvery book is a kind of gift to its r...
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The Paris Review Book
The Paris ReviewAn exciting new anthology from the journal Time magazine called "the biggest 'little magazine' in history." To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the venerable Paris Review, ...
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Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story
D. T. MaxThe acclaimed New York Times–bestselling biography and “emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)In the first biography of ...
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David Foster Wallace
Emiliano VenturaIl saggio sullo scrittore americano David Foster Wallace. La cometa che passa rasoterra arriva dieci anni dopo la morte, avvenuta a settembre del 2008. Autore complesso e ricercato...
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The David Foster Wallace Reader
David Foster WallaceWhere do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range...
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Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff
Sean Penn“An incredibly interesting work.” Jane Smiley “A straight up masterwork.” Sarah Silverman “Blisteringly funny.” Corey Seymour “A transcendent apocalyptic satire.” Michael Silverbla...
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I Wrote This Book Because I Love You
Tim KreiderA People Top 10 Book of 2018The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships...
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The Gentleman from San Francisco
David Richards, Ivan Bunin & Sophie LundA much neglected literary figure, Ivan Bunin is one of Russia's major writers and ranks with Tolstoy and Chekhov at the forefront of the Russian Realists. Drawing artistic inspirat...
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Navigate Your Stars
Jesmyn WardA revelatory, uplifting, and gorgeously illustrated meditation on dedication, hard work, and the power of perseverance from the beloved, New York Times bestselling, and twotime Nat...
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Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid
Virginia Woolf'The Germans were over this house last night and the night before that. Here they are again. It is a queer experience, lying in the dark and listening to the zoom of a hornet, whic...
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Depression and Dysphoria in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace
Rob MayoDepression and Dysphoria in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace is the first fulllength study of this critically overlooked theme, addressing a major gap in Wallace studies. Walla...
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Quicksand
Steve ToltzThis fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy about two lifelong friends is “a delightful literary novel…extraordinarily imaginative” (Psychology Today) from Man Booker...
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David Foster Wallace and Religion
Martin Brick & Michael McGowanIn the years since his suicide, scholars have explored David Foster Wallace's writing in transdisciplinary ways. This is the first book of its kind to discuss how Wallace under...
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Utilitarianism and Other Essays
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill & Alan RyanOne of the most important nineteenthcentury schools of thought, Utilitarianism propounds the view that the value or rightness of an action rests in how well it promotes the welfare...
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The Myth of the Goddess
Anne Baring & Jules CashfordA comprehensive, scholarly accessible study, in which the authors draw upon poetry and mythology, art and literature, archaeology and psychology to show how the myth of the goddess...
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The Irresponsible Self
James Wood"James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."Cynthia OzickFollowing the collection The Broken Esta...
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We Learn Nothing
Tim Kreider“Kreider locates the right simile and the pith of situations as he carefully catalogues humanity’s inventive and manifold ways of failing” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).In We...
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Carpe Every Diem
Robie RoggeA thoughtfully curated, cleverly designed keepsake that distills the wisdom of all those powerful graduation speakersfrom Barack Obama and Gloria Steinem to Kermit the Froginto the...
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Old Man Goriot
Honoré de Balzac & Olivia McCannonMonsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Mademe Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteri...
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A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers"Exhilarating…Profoundly moving, occasionally angry, and often hilarious...A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is, finally, a finite book of jest, which is why it succeeds so...
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The Gospel According to David Foster Wallace
Adam S. MillerThe Gospel According to David Foster Wallace is the first book to explore key religious themes from boredom to addiction, and distraction – in the work of one of America's mos...