Cooperman Elizabeth - Life is short; art is shorter : in praise of brevity

Recent praise for David Shields

Salinger (with Shane Salerno)

New York Times bestseller

LA Times bestseller

Revealing [A] sharp-edged portrait.

MICHIKO KAKUTANI, The New York Times

There are riches here

LEV GROSSMAN, Time

Hugely impressive

JOHN WALSH, The Sunday Times of London

Salinger is the thorny, complicated portrait that its thorny, complicated subject deserves

LOUIS BAYARD, The Washington Post

Salinger gets the goods on an authors reclusive life

DAVID L. ULIN, Los Angeles Times

Juicy Salinger is full of fascinating revelations.

ANDREW ROMANO, The Daily Beast

The reclusive authors story, thrillingly told

KYLE MINOR, Salon

refreshingly frank about [Salingers] many shortcomings and how they might have affected his work

LAURA MILLER, Salon

How Literature Saved My Life

These rigorous, high-octane, exhaustive yet taut ruminations on ambivalence, love, melancholy, and mortality are like an arrow laced with crack to the brain.

KRISTY DAVIS, O, The Oprah Magazine

Wonderful, vastly entertaining book.

EUGENIA WILLIAMSON, Boston Globe

Concise, fearless, urgent. A soulful writer, a skillful storyteller, and a man on the hunt for the Exquisite.

MINNA PROCTOR, Bookforum

A generation from now, when we pick up our flex-tablets or digi-goggles or whatever and read about literature at the turn of the twenty-first century, theres a decent chance well see it referred to as the David Shields era.

MARK ATHITAKIS, Barnes & Noble Review

Shields has an uncanny ability to tap into the short attention span of modern culture and turn it into something positive. How Literature Saved My Life presents a way forward for literature in new forms.

KEVIN MCFARLAND, The A.V. Club

Shields is a stunning writer. Within this book lies significant passion and revelation.

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Uncompromisingly intelligent, blisteringly forthright, and eschewing convention at every turn.

A. J. KIRBY, New York Journal of Books

There is no more interesting writer at this precise moment than David Shields.

JEFF SIMON, Buffalo News, Editors Choice

altogether fascinating.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

Quintessential genre-defying Shields. His writing gives you [a] sense of vertigo. Its energizing and weird, and it works.

EMILY GOGOLAK, The Village Voice

Shieldss ideas about literature come from a place of deep love; hes not trying to destroy but rebuild what is already broken.

CRAIG HUBERT, ArtInfo

I find David Shields unavoidable. A lot of that is a matter of styleI enjoy fragmentary writing, and few are more adept at it than he is.

GUY CUNNINGHAM, Bookslut

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

Named one of the best books of the year by more than thirty publications

Maybe hes simply ahead of the rest of us, mapping out the literary future of the next generation.

SUSAN H. GREENBERG, Newsweek

I cant stop recommending it to my friends.

EDWARD KING, The Times of London

[I am] grateful for this beautiful (yes, raw and gorgeous) book.

SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS, Los Angeles Times

This is the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010. Its a book that feels at least five years ahead of its time and teaches you how to read it as you go.

ALEX PAPPADEMAS, GQ

I find Shieldss book absorbing, even inspiring. The ideas he raises are so important, his ideas are so compelling, that I raved about this book the whole time I was reading it and have regularly quoted it to friends in the weeks since.

JAMI ATTENBERG, Bookforum

Thank goodness for David Shields and his new book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, which, among other things, is a literary battle cry for the creation of a new genre brilliant, thoughtful, and yes, original

CATHY ALTER, The Atlantic

David Shieldss radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger, is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form.

ELISSA SCHAPELL, Vanity Fair

I dont think it would be too strong to say that Shieldss book will be a sort of bible for the next generation of culture-makers.

DAVID GRIFFITH, Bookslut

Reality Hunger heralds what will be the dominant modes in years and decades to come.

LUC SANTE, The New York Times Book Review

As is true of any good manifesto, [Shields] clocks or locks a feeling in the air, something already everywhere, familiar but not fully formed.

ALEXANDRA JUHASZ, The Huffington Post

Essential reading for both readers and writers.

STEPHEN EMMS, The Guardian

an important book a provocative and entertaining manifesto.

BLAKE MORRISON, The Guardian, Book of the Week

David Shields has written yet another stunning book Why is this man always writing the most interesting books?

FREDERICK BARTHELME

The Thing About Life Is That One Day Youll Be Dead

New York Times bestseller

Named one of the best books of the year by Amazon.com, Artforum, Salon, Seattle Times, and TimeOut Chicago

Many writers aim to capture the human condition in all its variety, audacity, and contradiction, but few can claim to get as close to their target as Shields. [A] truly original vision brought to fruition.

JOSH ROSENBLATT, The Austin Chronicle

a terrible beauty of a book is born.

THOMAS LYNCH, Boston Globe

Enthralling Fascinating

MEREDITH MARAN, San Francisco Chronicle

An edifying, wise, unclassifiable mixture of filial love and Oedipal rage.

LEV GROSSMAN, Time

Mr. Shields is a sharp-eyed, self-deprecating, at times hilarious writer. Approaching the flat line of the last page, we want more.

STEPHEN BATES, The Wall Street Journal