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junosaur's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best books I've read in a long time. Smart, funny, and a craftsman with words, Kreider is my new favorite writer. Never before have I read a male author who has so much wonderful insight on heartbreak, friendship, sibling-ness and life in general. Brilliant, and beloved.
pearloz's review against another edition
3.0
Was particularly fond of the essay about tristam shandy and his mom.
adamrbrooks's review against another edition
4.0
This was my second Kreider essay collection, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first. He's casual but insightful (about himself and others), funny and forgiving of foibles (his and others'), cynical but hopeful. And always funny and sharp, with a great use of language and allusion.
His essay on a longtime mentor transitioning is really great, in part because it is 100% supportive, but acknowledges these situations can create odd layers of memory and understanding for loved ones.
Kreider is just always worth reading.
His essay on a longtime mentor transitioning is really great, in part because it is 100% supportive, but acknowledges these situations can create odd layers of memory and understanding for loved ones.
Kreider is just always worth reading.
valjohnson's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of the best books I've read in...years? It seemed like every other page I wanted to write down a quote where he articulated a feeling I never knew how to express myself.
livinlargemike's review against another edition
Like conversing with a close friend who knows what you're going through.
debi_g's review against another edition
5.0
This book instantly usurped the position of Debi's #1 Recommended Must-Read in the category of non-fiction. What it was previously, I can no longer recall. What matters is that We Learn Nothing is easy to embrace; a cousin to galvanizing essay collections by David Foster Wallace and Bill Bryson; in spite of its often deprecatory, introspective bent and veracious, temporal sermonizing, the book is actually sanguine.
Throughout his deliberate, rambling prose, Kreider concocts the most breezily exacting, apropos figurative language I've ever encountered. The tome is peppered with sublime, unexpected statements as simple as describing a welling of positive emotion as "the opposite of heartbroken," as trope and true as "a black-comic fiasco out of a Coen Brothers film," and as extended and avant garde as a "frustration pencil" serving to symbolize a repair for defriending. (There are better examples than these, it's just that I underlined so much and since I'm not writing a formal report, I feel at liberty to laze.)
Many of Kreider's topics strike a resonant note, but "Sister World" will stick with me the longest. It's vulnerable approach compels me to find or try to write a yin piece about the quirks, scars, and salves of estrangement from family.
Ordinarily, I'd concluded by sharing a smattering of cherished, ponderable, I-sooo-related-to-this quotations, but
A. there are far too many
B. it's best to discover them in context
because: Kreider.
Okay, okay, maybe just one. "The problem is, we only get one chance at this, with no do-overs. Life is an unrepeatable experiment with no control."
Throughout his deliberate, rambling prose, Kreider concocts the most breezily exacting, apropos figurative language I've ever encountered. The tome is peppered with sublime, unexpected statements as simple as describing a welling of positive emotion as "the opposite of heartbroken," as trope and true as "a black-comic fiasco out of a Coen Brothers film," and as extended and avant garde as a "frustration pencil" serving to symbolize a repair for defriending. (There are better examples than these, it's just that I underlined so much and since I'm not writing a formal report, I feel at liberty to laze.)
Many of Kreider's topics strike a resonant note, but "Sister World" will stick with me the longest. It's vulnerable approach compels me to find or try to write a yin piece about the quirks, scars, and salves of estrangement from family.
Ordinarily, I'd concluded by sharing a smattering of cherished, ponderable, I-sooo-related-to-this quotations, but
A. there are far too many
B. it's best to discover them in context
because: Kreider.
Okay, okay, maybe just one. "The problem is, we only get one chance at this, with no do-overs. Life is an unrepeatable experiment with no control."
earlyandalone's review against another edition
4.0
I was on the fence about this one when I started, but the last few essays in the collection are really powerful and beautiful.