Rating: 
Summary: Yes Yes Yes
Review: Brilliant, upendingly hilarious, and penetrating. Wallace's essays require stamina, concentration, imagination, and more than a dash of snobbery. His condescension towards the midwest which he gruesomely displays in his essay on the Illinois State Fair almost took the steam out of me. But I forged on, to be rewarded with what I imagine to be THE definitive essay on pleasure cruising. Whether recreating the heartbreak and drive of professional tennis journeymen, exploring the damage irony has wreaked on contemporary fiction, or contemplating the sinister workings of his on-board shower, Wallace flagrantly displays his virtuoso talent. If you are afraid of mind bending romps of theoretic fancy, painfully funny asides on every neurosis in the book, or keeping up with a gifted, precocious mind, this book is not for you. The laughs and the insights don't come cheap, but they're worth every single penny. A wonder.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Imaginative and Persuasive
Review: Wallace again amazes with his powers of observation and wit. The title essay is worth the price of admission, although the others are thought provoking as well. I find he can exhaust any topic with his Seinfeld-ian power of dissecting the most mundane minutiae of any experience, and documenting it with annotated footnotes. The catch however is this: his sarcasm and self-deprecation make his near-condescending style contagious and affective.The essays lack congruity though, this may have been planned, but made the volume lose a little luster. Over all, a rare find.
Rating: 
Summary: Good in parts--needed an editor with a red pen
Review: Funny and quirky, lots of interesting stuff, but lots of stuff that should have been left out, also. Too many footnotes in the title essay--a good thing gone wrong. Overall, a funny but sloppy and undisciplined book.
Rating:
Summary: An Extremely Good Book I Read Over and Over Again
Review: Those teenage students who aspire to be writers, READ THIS BOOK! Wallace's combination of interesting syntax, choice diction, and lucid description is a lesson to follow. Though he bears gifts, you can learn a lot from his writing. Those of you who do not aspire yo be writers will enjoy the book as well. This is a great book that will appeal to just about anyone. Tennis, geometry, state fairs, and a 7NC. Plus Wallace's sparkling talent and laugh-out-loud humor on top of that. Wow.
Rating: 
Summary: not a funny thing at all
Review: i was recommended this book by a man i met in a pub in county kerry, ireland. He said it was great but when i got it home i couldn't belive how bad it was. how bad? as bad as bad can be.
Rating:
Summary: Some brilliant writing, some less so; best tennis essay ever
Review: These essays, like his fiction, are written for the reader to enjoy the language, and may be most fun for readers who've read a lot of past and current "high" literature. For my money, the best writing on tennis that has ever been written. His writing is to straight nonfiction and realist fiction as writing by Jarrell and Lowell (among others) is to academic poetry criticism: idiosyncratic and expressive of this particular writer's relation to words and culture.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid and wildly enjoyable!
Review: This book is a fabulous example of Mr. Wallace's impossibly wide range of talent. If you've enjoyed anything else he's written, you'll love this, too.
Rating:
Summary: You have to read this book!
Review: I loved this book so much. While I skipped the two serious essays (I don't know enough about literary criticism to do so) I found the rest of the book amazing. He is a truly gifted writer. I keep relating incidents in this book to my life. The essay about the Illinois state fair has some of the funniest passages I've ever read. I laughted out loud while reading. I've been telling everyone I see to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: DFW is right on...
Review: I come from a Southern Town and have been to many, many state fairs. Depsite what some would call "East Coast Elitism," the author describes these goings on perfectly and totally accurately. Do not look down on him just for being truthful.
Rating:
Summary: A supposedly good book I won't recommend.
Review: Every page of this book includes about one sentence of lucid, vibrant observation. The rest is decidedly repetitious (he often re-uses/repeats quirky, distinctive thoughts and words within a few pages to little effect) and seems to make the author a candidate for a long lesson on 'sometimes less is more.'
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