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Summary: On Why
Review: First of all there is the title, which is ironic and not ironic at the same time. Irony is something this younger generation just doesn't seem to get; they seem to think it means making fun of the world. This writer knows it's otherwise. That it means heartbreak.Second, there is his style, which is emotive and and emotionless at the same time. What I mean is that his structures are ecstatic and yet his personal revelations are subtle. This is intirguing to say the least. Third of all there are his subjects, which run from the fascinating to the mundane but which are treated by the writer always with delicacy and wonderment. There's a gentleness and an eagerness to "know" ringing through each journey he takes with these subjects. Fourth he is sweet. (I can say this I've met him.) Fifth, cute. (Okay maybe I can't say that!) Sixth: going to change American literature.
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Summary: Excellent content and exploration of "new" essay form
Review: D'Agata is a keen observer not only of current culture but also of human nature - particularly of the circuitous routes our thoughts often take us. The light of the hotel Luxor in Las Vegas leads to list of phrases include "light" and "dark"; to speculation on the effect of light on culture; to space/atmosphere as a medium for creative expression; to sleep clinics; to encyclopedias of "things that go bump in the night". Other essays are as far-reaching. The essays themselves tied together through selected catalog entries from the Library of Congress with subtle changes in style as one moves from one list of entries to the next. It all fits together in a package that is "natural" rather than "experimental". This is an author worth watching - this is his early work.
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Summary: Style Sometimes IS Substance
Review: ...But that's not to suggest that John D'Agata's first book is all style. In fact, it's both: highly effective style in the service of substance. If D'Agata didn't have any point to these essays I suppose his far-off forms could come across as arch, but the truth of the matter is that these forms are about as perfect as one can make form. What I mean is D'agata understands that not everything in the world is nicely packaged in an easily digestible narrative framework. His forms therefore are "hard" or "challenging" because sometimes life--and what it "means"--just simply isn't easy to figure out. These are real life essays: attempts at making sense, of finding the shape of the world.
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Summary: DARN BRILLIANT
Review: It doesn't get any better than this. That's all I can say!
Rating: 
Summary: competent with flashes of loveliness
Review: ok, ok, so d'agata has been praised to bits here i had to read the book. it IS a good read, though a bit tedious at times. you can definitely tell he has the poet's sensibility, but i very much couldn't get past the feeling that his tone was "ooooh, look at how clever of an idea this is!" he is clever, just not THAT clever.
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Summary: Not a "Summer Read"
Review: This is an eternal read. It's "characters" will stay with you forever, probing deep into the way we construct wonders and meaning, and therefore boring deep into its readers too. My daughter brought this book home with her from school and hooked me onto to it immediately. Its story about the small experimental school in California that caters to young male outcast geniuses (a school the young author apparently attended, go figure!) is a thrill ride, written in a five page long sentence. His profile of the president of the Flat Earth Society is precious and touching, and his take on the man who takes care of the brightest light in the world (situated in Las Vegas, Nevada, of course!) is hilarious and saddening at the same time. I had some worries that this new crew of young adventure writers in nonfiction would only continue to produce works that made jokes at the expense of their subjects. Now John D'Agata comes along...
Rating:
Summary: stagger this
Review: i've had about enough of heartbreakingly bad prose and super ironic posing from "generation x", a peculiarly american term. here's a chap with an interest in the nastier end of the bucket but not the nastier end of the pen. he's sharp, smart, charmingly good humoured about the absurdity of his subjects and just about the best practitioner of nonfiction i've read in a long while. bravo young d'agata, john!
Rating:
Summary: extraordinary
Review: It is as if john d'agata has dived down to some remote sea cave and carried back with him only the most rare, the most beautiful, the most heartwrenching and most charming images and stories from america's silly and stupid and glorious hidden self. He shows us things like a museum guide, for he never tells or lectures but only points us in the direction of treasures to find ourselves, treasures not necessarily so rare or even so beautiful, but truly necessary, truly made his own.
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Summary: His Own Hall of Fame
Review: This is an abundantly ambitious book, a fun read & and a daring debut!
Rating:
Summary: a rarity in 'nonfiction'
Review: any writer with d'aagata's talent would turn to poetry or fiction, or maybe even screenwriting these days. it's rare to find a writer so young with already the finely honed skills of a journalist turning to this obscure form of essay writing, the 'lyric essay', in order to make art. it's risky and it pays off. you need to sit for a long time with the book, give it space in your head to stretch. i would even recommend starting at the back of the book, and moving backward, for thats where his 'easiest' work is. however difficult the essays seem however, at every turn they pay off. my friend said he recently booked himself into the luxor hotel in las vegas just because he wanted to see this place that d'agata wrote about. he's got a knck for combining research, witt, and empathy that makes the voice in this book something truly extra-ordinary.
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