Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts

Sunday, August 26, 2018

The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America by Sarah Kendzior

https://catalog.dubuque.lib.ia.us/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=214016
Sarah Kendzior is a journalist writing from St. Louis, Missouri, a city firmly tucked in "flyover country," that large swathe of the United States between the east and west coasts that tends to get little attention. Kendzior sets out to correct some of this neglect in her new book, The View from Flyover Country, composed of short pieces she wrote for Al Jazeera between 2012 and 2014.

All is not well in flyover country, although many of the issues Kendzior writes about affect the entire nation and the globe. Her overarching theme is social and economic justice -- the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots -- which she explores by looking closely at race and religion, the media, higher education, and what she calls the post-employment economy.

With years of journalistic experience and degrees in history, Central Eurasian studies (an MA), and anthropology (a PhD), Kendzior knows her stuff. She's also a clear and graceful writer. One of her primary contentions is that, increasingly, those in positions of influence -- in government, business, policymaking, and mainstream journalism -- belong to an affluent and self-selected set who, due to their privileged backgrounds, cannot possibly comprehend, assess, or report accurately on economic issues. But entry into their professional circles is too often barred to the rest of us by the sky-high cost of elite private schools and the fact that so many influential positions are now filled by those who were able to spend years in under- or unpaid internships and fellowships gaining access to those in power.

Kendzior hits hard on the surreal situation that exists in our public universities too, where student costs have shot through the roof, yet, in many cases, over 70% of tenure-track faculty has been replaced by poorly paid adjuncts. She also examines student-loan debt, stagnant and declining wages, the exorbitant cost of living in big cities, the gender gap, the shootings of unarmed black men, the surveillance state, and so much more. It's not a heartening collection to read, but Kendzior's candor is refreshing, and hope springs eternal that heightened awareness may eventually lead to solutions.

~Ann, Adult Services

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Staff Review: Feel Free by Zadie Smith

https://catalog.dubuque.lib.ia.us/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?idx=au%2Cwrdl&q=zadie+smith&op=and&idx=ti&q=feel+free&op=and&idx=kw&do=Search&sort_by=relevance&limit=
In one of the pieces in novelist Zadie Smith's new essay collection, Feel Free, she writes that knowledgeable people -- educated people who not only pursue a craft or profession, but are also connoisseurs of Baroque music, say, or Renaissance art or French wine -- intimidate her, cause her to feel an almost-existential angst.

This seems odd because the overwhelming impression one has after reading Smith's new collection is "How can one person know so much?" Really. Smith writes (a lot), she travels, she teaches, she gives speeches, she's got a mate and a couple little kids. How does she do it?

What's even more remarkable is that she can write about so many different subjects, highbrow to low, without ever seeming pretentious, condescending, or dull. Rather, she seems down-to-earth, self-deprecating, just plain nice.

The topics of Feel Free's essays, many of which were originally written for New York Review of Book, New Yorker, and Harper's, run the gamut from Brexit to Jay-Z, British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye to Justin Bieber, portraitist Bathasar Denner to installation artist Sarah Sze. She writes about Key & Peele, Orson Welles, Billie Holiday, and Mark Zuckerberg. There are also book reviews and essays on joy, despair, optimism, climate change, writing, gentrification, and more.

Smith's a wonderful writer and her essays are engaging and personal because she's passionately engaged with life and acutely worried about the state of the world. If you're like me, reading her collection may make you feel like a bit of an underachiever, but you'll know a lot more when you finish than you did at the start and that's a small achievement in itself, right?

~Ann, Adult Services



 

Friday, April 19, 2013

Essays and short non-fiction

A selection of essay and other short non-fiction collections available at Carnegie-Stout Public Library. We've included a variety of topics and styles, but you'll notice a slight preference to the literary because it is, after all, National Library Week. If you're a fan of short non-fiction, you might also enjoy checking out this list of 102 articles from 2012.
The Lifespan of a Fact by John D'Agata (808.02 DAG)

In Other Worlds: SF and the human imagination by Margaret Atwood (813.54 ATW)

The Thing About Life is That One Day you'll be Dead by David Shields (813.54 SHI)

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (814.54 EPH)

Farther Away: essays by Jonathan Franzen (814.54 FRA)

Distrust that Particular Flavor by William Gibson (814.54 GIB)

When I was a Child, I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson (814.54 ROB)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (813.54 SED)

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell (814.6 GLA)

Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan (814.6 SUL)

The Possessed: adventures with Russian books and the people who read them by Elif Batuman (891.709 BAT)

Please stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you!