Books for Prep | |
by: David Shields  List Price: $23.95 Amazon.com's Price: $16.29 You Save: $7.66 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780307268044 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0307268047 Label: Knopf Manufacturer: Knopf Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: February 05, 2008 Publisher: Knopf Release Date: February 05, 2008 Studio: Knopf Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com: Amazon Significant Seven, February 2008: "After you turn 7, your risk of dying doubles every eight years." By your 80s, you "no longer even have a distinctive odor ... You're vanishing." "The brain of a 90-year-old is the same size as that of a 3-year-old." And it goes on and on. David Shields's litany of decay and decrepitude might have overwhelmed the age-sensitive reader (like this one), but The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead manages to transcend the maudlin by melding personal history with frank biological data about every stage of life, creating an "autobiography about my body" that seeks meaning in death, but moreover, life. Shields filters his frank--and usually foreboding--data through his own experience as a 51-year-old father with burgeoning back pain, contrasting his own gloomy tendencies with the defiant perspective of his own 97-year-old father, a man who has waged a lifelong, urgent battle against the infirmities of time. (If believed, his love life at age 70 was truly marvelous.) Interwoven with observations of philosophers from Cicero and Sophocles to Lauren Bacall and Woody Allen ("I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying."), Shields's book is a surprisingly moving and life-affirming embrace of the human condition, where inevitable failures and frailties become "thrilling" and "liberating," rather than dour portents of The End. --Jon Foro Amazon.com Guest Review: Danielle Trussoni David Shields's The Thing About Life is that One Day You'll Be Dead is an addictively punchy, startlingly brilliant exploration of our most essential relationship--the one between parent and child. Shields juxtaposes a storm of astonishing facts about the development of the human body ("By the time you're 5, your head has attained 90 percent of its mature size; by 7, your brain reaches 90 percent of its maximum weight; by 9, 95 percent; during adolescence, 100 percent") with an intimate portrait of himself as a son and father. The result is a naked, honest, and often funny book that forces one to look clearly at the realities of the body--especially the burden that biology imposes upon our inner life--in a fresh and disturbing way. The writing is fast, postmodern, and filled with quotations from such diverse sources as Shields's back doctor and Tolstoy. The style might be dizzying in the hands of a less perceptive narrator, but Shields has the eye of an archeologist cataloging the bizarre traits of an ancient civilization. How Shields managed to compress the whole mess of love, family, genetics, and desire into this elegant, elemental book is a wonder. --Danielle Trussoni, author of Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir Product Description: “David Shields has accomplished something here so pure and wide in its implications that I almost think of it as a secular, unsentimental Kahlil Gibran: a textbook for the acceptance of our fate on earth.” —Jonathan Lethem Mesmerized—at times unnerved—by his ninety-seven-year-old father’s nearly superhuman vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an investigation of the human physical condition. The result is this exhilarating book: both a personal meditation on mortality and an exploration of flesh-and-blood existence from crib to oblivion—an exploration that paradoxically prompts a renewed and profound appreciation of life. Shields begins with the facts of birth and childhood, expertly weaving in anecdotal information about himself and his father. As the book proceeds through adolescence, middle age, old age, he juxtaposes biological details with bits of philosophical speculation, cultural history and criticism, and quotations from a wide range of writers and thinkers—from Lucretius to Woody Allen—yielding a magical whole: the universal story of our bodily being, a tender and often hilarious portrait of one family. A book of extraordinary depth and resonance, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead will move readers to contemplate the brevity and radiance of their own sojourn on earth and challenge them to rearrange their thinking in unexpected and crucial ways. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Whining and MeanderingRarely do I not finish a book. I made an exception in this book. I was expecting a book of soulful insight and instead found a book of disjointed information presented in an awkward way. The further I read, the greater my sense that this book was not going anywhere. Finally, I stopped mid-chapter. Where was this author's editor? Rating:  - DissapointmentI found this book to drag on and on and provide useless information. Yes the author did do a lot of research in finding the facts but the book itself was a huge let-down. It is about a young man and his stages of life, but chooses very bad stories that have facts in them. It goes back and forth about his relationship of his dad. It also tells many stores that the reader does not want to know. (i was thinking T.M.I. a few times) Im very mad at myself for buying it in a book store and spending $23 ... Read More Rating:  - The Thing about Reading this Book is that Someday You'll be Finished (Thank goodness!) A near-terminal case. Author David Shields runs this book along parallel and often intersecting tracks. One is a litany of facts regarding the birth, maturation and aging process. The other consists of reflections on his own life and, particularly, the life of his 97-year old father. Not everyone will find this a novel revelation (Hey - people age and die! Who knew???!) or a fascinating story. The chapters offering straight ... Read More Rating: - I enjoyed this book, but found it more to be a memoir of the author's life.The author's obsession with death is revealed throughout the book. The interesting question is: `Do atheists and theists view death in the same light?' If you read books by saints or religious people, you'll find that indeed they welcome death. Death to them is not an end but a beginning. At death, we are reunited with our loved ones. The world of the dead is another world where we are as much alive as in this world. Throughout our body, since conception, a process of birth and death is ... Read More Rating: - Bits and Pieces about LifeThe Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead contains a mixture of an autobiography and facts about the body's growing and aging. The stories told and the given facts both humor and depress readers. Rather than linearly cover author David Shields' life from childhood to adulthood sprinkled with quotes and stories about his and his father's lives, the chapters jump around with random thoughts and stories. One chapter might tell a story about Shields' teen years, or another support ... Read More 
In association with Amazon.com | |