The End of the End of the Earth

1 About this book

The essayist, Jonathan Franzen writes, is like 'a fire-fighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames of shame, is to run straight into them.' For the past twenty-five years, even as his novels have earned him worldwide acclaim, Franzen has led a second life as a risk-taking essayist.

Now, at a moment when technology has inflamed tribal hatreds and the planet is beset by unnatural calamities, he is back with a new collection of essays that recall us to more humane ways of being in the world. Franzen's great loves are literature and birds, and [this book] is a passionate argument for both.

Where the new media tend to confirm one's prejudices, he writes, literature 'invites you to ask whether you might be somewhat wrong, maybe even entirely wrong, and to imagine why someone else might hate you.' Whatever his subject, Franzen's essays are always skeptical of received opinion, steeped in irony, and frank about his own failings.

Good for readers who want: essays and a true life story.

• Essays
• Biography & autobiography
• Speeches