The Howling Fantods

Madame Psychosis On Air by Set In Sound over at Soundcloud.

Surprisingly good.

Listen here.

Well it's (almost depends where you are!) release day in the US for The David Foster Wallace Reader.

As I've mentioned previously, you can read the intro and the first few pieces in the online preview, and check out the table of contents from the sampler.

It's already available in the UK, and soon to be released in Australia on the 8th of December.

Honestly, I love it. Not so much the excerpts from the novels (though they would be great if this was a required text for a DFW overview study course), but the collection of fiction and non-fiction is just the best of the best. Sure, there's probably some loss, particularly with respect to the fiction, not being read in context of the individual collections (they are great collections, particularly the structure and flow of Oblivion: Stories), but to have many of Wallace's finest fiction and non-fiction in the same place is wonderful.

In my afterword I write about Incarnations of Burned Children being the story I use to introduce new readers to Wallace. This collection may well function as the next step in that process for me.

Okay now the thing I've been avoiding writing about...

So all my links are Amazon affiliate links and I'm kind of uncomfortable with it being the only option on my site right now. Based on traffic I know many of you have been redirecting your purchases elsewhere in response to the Amazon vs Hachette thing (many articles to read about this... here's just one) and I'm fine with that. I'm trying to set up B&N affiliate stuff, but I'm running into difficulties with signing up internationally (I'm not sure why, any advice hit me up in the comments below). I'm thinking of setting up the ability to donate (Paypal? Bitcoin?) or be a site patron, but these things always make me uncomfortable because I hate feeling I have to update because readers have paid me to do so. It also makes it much more difficult to walk away from updates for a few weeks when things get tricky in real life. i.e. the last month or so. Any thoughts or ideas? Let me know in the comments. Nick

Salon have another excerpt (first excerpt here) from the upcoming David Foster Wallace Reader right here: David Foster Wallace’s mind-blowing creative nonfiction syllabus: “This does not mean an essayist’s goal is to ‘share’ or ‘express herself’ or whatever feel-good term you got taught in high school”.

Check out Edwin Turner's Biblioklept piece about ghosts and phantoms in The Pale King.

It's comforting to know that someone put time into considering one of my favourite aspects of the novel.

Phantoms and Ghosts in DFW’s Novel The Pale King (Ghost Riff 2)

[Here's Ghost Riff 1 if you were wondering...]

15 copies of The David Foster Wallace Reader are being given away over at Goodreads (if you live in the US).

(Looks like there'll be something to win here too next week...)

You can check out a preview of The David Foster Wallace Reader (due November 11th) over at the Hachette Book Group page.

The preview includes the Introduction, The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing, Kevin Dettmar's afterword, excerpts from The Broom of the System, and Gerald Howard's afterword.

I received a couple of copies in the post today for my tiny involvement in this collection (I was asked to write the afterword for Incarnations of Burned Children) and now I truly understand that commonly expressed feeling of not wanting to look at something one has written, ever again, now that it is an actual... thing.

Putting all that behind me it's an extensive collection that, yes, contains excerpts of the long things, but also contains Wallace's very best short fiction, non-fiction, and teaching materials. I've not read all of the afterwords, but those I have managed to get to this evening make me want to take my time with the rest.

The newly collected passages from Wallace in the selected teaching materials (beautifully introduced by Sally Foster Wallace) highlight his passion for teaching that I know many of his readers wish they were able to experience first hand. There is certainly material in here that will inform my teaching in the future.

[This is where I usually hit you up with a pre-order link to Amazon US because the small commission helps me keep this site running. Unfortunately, the link just takes you to the page where you'll be able to the buy the book when it is released on Nov 11 (thanks to that ongoing dispute). I still haven't decided what to do about it yet...]

The David Foster Wallace reader via Amazon UK