David Foster Wallace
Born
in Ithaca, New York, The United States
February 21, 1962
Died
September 12, 2008
Website
Genre
Influences
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Infinite Jest
105 editions
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published
1996
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Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
48 editions
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published
2005
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A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
84 editions
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published
1996
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This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
67 editions
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published
2009
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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
76 editions
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published
1999
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The Broom of the System
66 editions
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published
1987
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The Pale King
70 editions
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published
2011
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Oblivion: Stories
51 editions
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published
2004
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Girl with Curious Hair
68 editions
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published
1988
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Both Flesh and Not: Essays
30 editions
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published
2012
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“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
―
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“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
― Infinite Jest
― Infinite Jest
Polls
Fourth Quarter 2014 Long Read
1862, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, 1463 pages
1605, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 982 pages
1954, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1178 pages
1872, Middlemarch by George Eliot, 904 pages
1844, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, 1276 pages
1874, The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, 723 pages
1957, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, 1168 pages
1993, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, 1474 pages
1930, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, 1774 pages
1996, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, 1079 pages
1748, Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson, 1534 pages
Topics Mentioning This Author
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---|---|---|---|---|
The Seasonal Read...: Math Tasks | 77 | 399 | Oct 02, 2009 04:19PM | |
The Seasonal Read...: FALL CHALLENGE 2009 QUESTIONS | 921 | 976 | Nov 29, 2009 04:46PM | |
Book Buying Addic...: Titles A-Z Game | 684 | 789 | Apr 21, 2010 07:20PM | |
The Seasonal Read...:
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348 | 418 | May 26, 2010 07:44AM | |
The Seasonal Read...: 15.4 - Learn Your Numbers | 137 | 382 | Aug 19, 2010 10:47PM | |
Challenge: 50 Books: Shibbie's 2010 | 37 | 351 | Dec 12, 2010 08:39PM |