One of the few books I've read that requires a dictionary (not a bad thing!). Gave up about a third through. Just not my thing. ( )

2.7/5 ( )

Part of my reading practice is to keep a slip of paper or notebook to scribble thoughts or words to look up. For D'Ambrosio's collection of essays, I needed a big piece of paper for the latter. Beyond to often overly esoteric subject matter, D'Ambrosio sometimes seems to be writing for the purpose of displaying his otherworldly vocabulary. Funny enough, the last word I had to look up - pleonasm - rendered a definition that was almost on point for a one-word review: "the use of more words than necessary to denote mere sense." While all of that seems like I didn't like the book, the opposite is true. He is a keen observer of humans and human behavior, and extremely frank with his own history and pain. My favorite essay was the lead, dealing with his observations from the street during a volatile police call over a man barricaded in an apartment with a gun. I also quite enjoyed his essays dealing with literary topics and writers, save for the last one during which he went on a deep exegetical dive through a poem, plumbing farther than almost anyone would into the writing - and farther, I suspect, than any poet on their own work. On balance, a very enjoyable book. ( )

Enjoyed the essay on whaling--whale lovers vs. Native American treaty rights.

D'Ambrosio loiters a bit in the pity, pushing self-awareness for all it is worth.

I was constantly amused by the referral to Seattle as some sort of intellectual backwater to be escaped, as I had to work very hard to escape TO Seattle from my own backwater. ( )