Explore the heritage foods and traditions that give the United States its distinctive culinary identity-some rare, some endangered, all delicious-in this gorgeous compendium for curious eaters and home gardeners.
David Shields Books
July 22, 1956
David Shields is an author whose work provocatively interrogates the boundaries between fiction and reality, often described as mind-bending and brain-rewiring. His writing delves into urgent questions about life, art, and the human experience, employing unconventional forms and deep self-reflection. Through his distinctive voice, Shields challenges readers to reconsider their perceptions of the world and the very nature of creation and existence.
"The Very Last Interview is a unique work, a lacerating self-examination that came about when David decided to gather every interview he ever did, going back nearly 40 years. If it was radio or TV, he transcribed it. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he knew he wasn't interested in any of his own answers. The questions interested him - approximately 2,700, which he collated and cut down to form 22 chapters focused on subjects that include Process, Childhood, Failure, Capitalism, Suicide, and Comedy. Then, according to Shields, "the real work began: rewriting and editing and remixing the questions and finding a throughline." It's a ruthless self-dismantling in which the author, in this case, a late middle-aged white man, is strangely, thrillingly, not present. As Chuck Klosterman wrote about the book: "Logic suggests that people are best understood through the things they say, but that's not how the media usually work. People are actually defined by the questions they get asked (and the degree to which their answers can be framed to prove whatever was already assumed to be true).The Very Last Interview is David Shields doing what he has brilliantly done for the past twenty-five years: interrogating his own intellectual experience by changing the meaning of what seems both obviously straightforward and obviously wrong." -- Provided by publisher
"The official book of the acclaimed documentary film"--Jacket.
Reality Hunger
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Reality Hunger is a manifesto for a burgeoning group of interrelated but unconnected artists who, living in an unbearably artificial world, are breaking ever larger chunks of 'reality' into their work. The questions Shields explores � the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real � play out constantly around us, and Reality Hunger is a radical reframing of how we might think about this 'truthiness': about literary licence, quotation, and appropriation in television, film, performance art, rap, and graffiti, in lyric essays, prose poems, and collage novels. Drawing on myriad sources, Shields takes an audacious stance on issues that are being fought over now and will be fought over far into the future. Converts will see Reality Hunger as a call to arms; detractors will view it as an occasion to defend the status quo. It is certain to be one of the most controversial and talked about books of the season.
Das Dumme am Leben ist, dass man eines Tages tot ist
Eine Art Anleitung zum Glücklichsein
„Das Leben ist einfach, tragisch und schön“, schreibt David Shields. Der Gedanke an die Vergänglichkeit des Lebens kann befreiend sein. Das Buch thematisiert, wie alles auf den Tod zuläuft, und paradox dazu erlebt der Leser eine Leichtigkeit des Seins. Es geht nicht nur um den Tod, sondern vielmehr um das Leben und dessen Bedeutung. Shields meditiert melancholisch-humorvoll und ehrlich über die Frage, was der Tod für das Leben bedeutet. Er berichtet nüchtern von biologischen Fakten unserer Existenz, beschreibt die Entwicklung des Embryos, den Alterungsprozess und erklärt, warum Männer und Frauen tiefe Stimmen lieben. Diese naturwissenschaftlichen Aspekte verknüpft er mit kulturgeschichtlichen Betrachtungen, philosophischen Spekulationen und persönlichen Anekdoten. Besonders eindrucksvoll ist die Geschichte seines Vaters Milton, der mit 97 Jahren noch eine bemerkenswerte Vitalität zeigt und dessen Leben ein Kampf gegen die Vergänglichkeit war. Auch seine Tochter Natalie wird erwähnt, die das Drama des Lebens noch vor sich hat. Shields lädt uns ein, unseren kurzen und rätselhaften Aufenthalt auf dieser Erde neu und unerwartet zu überdenken.
