Against Everything by Mark Greif

Against Everything by Mark Greif

A brilliant collection of essays from one of the most highly acclaimed young writers in the US - Featured in: The Guardian Best Books of 2016 and NY Magazine Best Books of 2016

Mark Greif writes a contrarian, skeptical prose that is at the same time never cynical: it opens out on to beauty and the possibility of change -- Zadie Smith
Matches brilliant critique with improbable optimismHis essays risk embarrassment to analyse the irritations of urban life - hipsters, foodies, gym-goers - so that we might see these characters in ourselves, and treat them with, if not more kindness, more interest. -- Spectator [Books of the Year]
It makes you think ... Greif thinks that a whole lot will have to change before real choice is possible. Until then, it's not enough to be against the box-office and the real-estate section and the best-seller list. Until then, we have to be against ... everything. -- Loui Menand * New Yorker *
Mark Greif's essay on the Kafkaesque nature of the modern gym, Against Exercise, is already a classic; and his new book, Against Everything tells us it's not just the gym, it's also our music, our culture, our political life - everything about us, in fact - that is right out of Kafka. -- Aravind Adiga * Guardian [Books of the Year] *
The best claim to be his generation's finest essayist comes in the concluding essay on Thoreau, the Occupy movement and his own generation. Taken as a whole the book is a powerful injunction to look, listen and reflect, our surest means of defiance against the encroaching dimness. -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard *
These smart and bracingly negative essays will break you out of your Facebook-induced stupor. * Esquire *
[M]aybe you've missed cofounder Mark Greif's years of essayistic genius for [n+1]. This book is a one stop shop to fix that. In thoughtful, deeply informed, nuanced works of criticism, Greif makes the case "Against Exercise," questions "What Was the Hipster?" and delves into "Octomom and the Market in Babies." . . . [F]ans of in-depth cultural criticism will have the perfect companion in this compendium. -- Claire Fallon * Huffington Post *
Embodies a return to the pleasures of critical discourse at its most cerebral and personable. Greif brings to mind a host of critics from William Hazlitt to Lionel Trillling, but most of all he suggests it is possible to write about culture with a reverence for language and a passion for what has come before. I would read anything he writes, anywhere. * New York Times Book Review *
Politically engaged, coolly stylish and often drily funny. * Guardian *

Mark Greif is a founder and Editor of the journal n+1. He lives and works in New York, where he is Associate Professor of Literary Studies at the New School. He is the highly acclaimed author of The Age of the Crisis of Man, and his criticism and journalism have appeared in publications including the London Review of Books, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and New Statesman.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781784785932
ISBN 10	1784785938
Title	Against Everything
Author	Mark Greif
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Verso Books
Year published	2017-09-12
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.