State by State
A Panoramic Portrait of America
Published on 1. November 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
608 pages
978-0-06-147091-2 (ISBN)
Description
Editors Sean Wilsey and Matt Weiland have turned to 50 of the finest, funniest, and foremost writers in America to create a state by state celebration of their country: Jonathan Franzen on New York, Louise Erdrich on North Dakota, Dave Eggers on Illinois, Ann Patchett on Tennessee, Jhumpa Lahiri on Rhode Island - the list goes on. At turns poignant and hysterical, and uniformly insightful, these fifty writers capture the beauty, the kitsch, the unexpected and the quintessential things that make America. There is something and someone in State by State for everyone. With a roster of bestsellers and award winners, from Ann Patchett to Rick Moody to Myla Goldberg, Wilsey and Weiland have culled the best of the best from the literary creme de la creme to write on something all Americans are interested in: our country.
Reviews / Votes
"[State by State] is a funny, moving, rousing collection, greater than the sum of its excellent parts, a convention of literary superdelegates, each one boisterously nominating his or her piece of the Republic." -- New York Times Book Review "This fascinating collection, inspired by guides in the 1930s and 1940s, includes original essays on each of the states by some of the country's finest (mostly younger) writers." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Self-consciously modeled after state guides sponsored by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s, this ambitious effort features a terrific roster of writers." -- Kirkus Reviews "Fascinating." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Odds are, reading STATE BY STATE, that you'll fall for every state a little, even if they remain tremendously hard to explain." -- Los Angeles Times "This eclectic collection of essays describing the ordinary people and places within our 50 states is as essential as the Rand McNally atlas. Alternately brash and bashful...each literary foray in State by State is well worth the trip. Grade: A." -- Entertainment Weekly "An enjoyable journey: 50 essays, cartoons and mini-plays, plus an afterward about Washington, DC and a fascinating appendix...all in all, it makes one yearn for a driver's license and a stretch of open highway." -- New York Post "Ideal nightstand reading and a welcome reminder of the pluribus behind the unum." -- Salon.comMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
974 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-147091-2 (9780061470912)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Matt Weiland is the Deputy Editor of The Paris Review. He has been an editor at Granta, The Baffler and The New Press, and he oversaw a documentary radio unit at NPR. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, New York Observer, The Nation and The New Republic. He is the co-editor, with Sean Wilsey, of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup and, with Thomas Frank, of Commodify Your Dissent: The Business of Culture in the New Gilded Age. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son. Sean Wilsey is the author of Oh the Glory of It All, a memoir, and the creator, with Tamara Shopsin, of a related Web site, ohtheglory.com. He is also an Editor-at-Large for McSweeney's, and the co-editor, with Matt Weiland, of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup.