This Is Water

by David Foster Wallace

Electronic resource

English language

Published April 22, 2009 by Little, Brown and Company.

ISBN:: 978-0-316-07100-0
OCLC Number:: 421037440

(27 reviews)

Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every reading.

4 editions

The Weaver Reads reviewed This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

Goodreads of This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life

5 stars

It’s easy to write this off as platitude, and I didn’t really get the raving about this short piece until the last lines. Then, I got chills. I think it took until this point in my life for the value of meaning-making in every day life to really set in. Probably, I’ll fall backwards. But, that doesn’t make it any less valuable. It’s about taking into account something BEYOND myself and to stop living on auto-pilot. It’s beautiful.

anka.trini reviewed This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

Review of 'This Is Water' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Quite basic

Taylor reviewed This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

Review of 'This is water' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A speech-turned-book that asks us to focus on what matters. A good one to revisit in book or video form.

tradecraft reviewed This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

Review of 'This is water' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It's an interesting assessment of ego, of why education matters, and why we need to control our thoughts. Most troubling: "The capital-t Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to thirty, or maybe even fifty, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head." Wallace killed himself in 2008. I think he got lost along the way, but knew what the journey was about.