Year in Reading

A Year in Reading: Joshua Ferris

By posted at 8:35 am on December 7, 2009 3

covercovercoverI had the great pleasure of reading Sarah Manguso’s memoir The Two Kinds of Decay, a spare, unsentimental account of her fight against a rare autoimmune disorder. Manguso brings to the memoir a poet’s attention to line breaks and white space, which amplify the chilling juxtapositions and naked declarations of her monumental physical struggle. It’s a rare form for the memoir, one that perfectly suits its subject.

Holly Goddard-Jones wrote a sad, dark, honest-spoken collection of stories called Girl Trouble, set in rural Kentucky—all eight of them 80-proof and among my favorites of the year.

And I’ve just finished the lion’s share of essays in Zadie Smith’s collection Changing My Mind. I think Smith the best critic of her generation, maybe the best mind altogether. Certainly no one has written a more loving critical appraisal of David Foster Wallace than she has in the final essay, where she makes a convincing case that Wallace’s difficulty and maddening recursion was not purposeful obfuscation, but the manifestation of his commitment to making meaningful human connection on the page.

More from A Year in Reading

Related posts:





Share this article

More from the Millions

3 Responses to “A Year in Reading: Joshua Ferris”

  1. Amber
    at 11:22 pm on December 8, 2009

    I finished Zadie Smith’s book last night and I must say, it was an enjoyable read. I got so many suggestions for new books to read. The only downside I’d say about the book was that I hadn’t read some of the books her essays were on and it made it a little hard to get thru.

  2. The Nervous Breakdown
    at 9:00 am on December 16, 2009

    [...] Recently at The Millions, Josh Ferris talked about Changing My Mind, a collection of essays from Zadie Smith, and I [...]

  3. Zadie Smith and Her Craft « Three Guys One Book
    at 10:11 pm on October 14, 2010

    [...] Recently at The Millions, Josh Ferris talked about Changing My Mind, a collection of essays from Zadie Smith, and I [...]

Post a Response

Comments with unrelated links will be deleted. If you'd like to reach our readers, consider buying an advertisement instead.

Anonymous and pseudonymous comments that do not add to the conversation will be deleted at our discretion.