“While a year of blog posts might not seem like an impressive feat, the profound and impactful series written and published by Phillip Lopate reinvents the genre of nonfiction and the perception of a blog… his piece is a profoundly moving depiction of a life well-lived—it is the story of age, experience, curiosity, intelligence, and a man aware of his flaws.” —Emerson L. Giese, Harvard Crimson
“He introduces you to totally different time periods, worlds, depths of knowledge. He hasn’t read five Montaigne essays, he’s read them all. . . . Most writers are melancholic. He’s joyful, with infectious energy. . . . There’s no replacement for Phillip Lopate.” —Rivka Galchen, Tablet
“The pieces are timely, but not dated. . . . There are tributes to famous friends. . . . There are also essays about travel, dating, married life, vacation, his lifelong obsession with film, and his late-life obsession with Montaigne. During his year as a blogger, Lopate may have had in mind Flaubert’s dream of a book about nothing. A critic’s life was lived instead.” —Booklist
“I found Phillip’s blog and began reading. I couldn’t stop. The essay in [Lopate’s] tradition is tentative, skeptical, digressive, and, above all, conversational. It goes some place without knowing where it is going to go. It revises itself. It is one person speaking to another, a late-night talk where ideas are tried out.” —Ned Stuckey-French, The Woven Tale Press
“Lopate has long been established as an exemplar of the personal essay as well as a critic, poet, and, occasionally, fiction writer. In 2016, he took on a less formal task, producing a weekly blog for the American Scholar. The resulting collection of these posts, penned with a generally light touch, affords Lopate greater freedom of movement and a wider range of subject matter. . . A master of short-form discourse succeeds with highly individualized and candid observations.” —Kirkus Reviews
“It’s apt that Lopate quotes from the nineteenth-century Scottish essayist Alexander Smith, a writer whose easy fluency of style is not unlike his own. Smith’s views on writing about oneself ‘without taint of boastfulness’ tie in nicely with the manner of Lopate’s self-reflections. . . . Reading these collected blogs, one has the sense of listening to a friendly, intelligent, relaxed individual talking amiably and entertainingly about a whole range of subjects, about which he often has a rare depth of knowledge and to which he brings his own unique perspective.” —Chris Arthur, World Literature Today
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