Reviews on Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
(Knopf, published February 2010)
David Shields... more here
“It's about time someone said something this honest in print.” —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
“David Shields's radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger (Knopf), is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form.” —Vanity Fair
“This is the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010. It's a book that feels at least five years ahead of its time and teaches you how to read it as you go.” —Alex Pappademas, GQ
“……I don't think it would be too strong to say that Shields's book will be a sort of bible for the next generation of culture-makers.” —David Griffith, Bookslut
“This dude's book is the hip-hop album of the year…” —Peter Macia, Fader
“David Shields' new manifesto, Reality Hunger, models a radical rethinking of the rules of artistic appropriation.” —Chris Mitchell, The Week
“One of the great books of the year.” —Jeff Simon, Buffalo News
“Good manifestos propagate. Their seeds cling to journals and blogs and conversations, soon enough sprawling sub-manifestoes of acclamation or rebuttal. After the opening call to action, a variety of minds turn their attention to the same problem. It's the humanist ideal of a dialectic writ large: ideas compete and survive by fitness, not fiat. David Shields's Reality Hunger has just the immodest ambition and exhorter's zeal to bring about this happy scenario.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Entertaining, insightful, and impressively broad… brings to mind an amped-up Nicholson Baker… Most important, it's a guidebook for where literary writing could go in the future… You might not agree with Shields's broadside or his hardheaded conclusions, but it's difficult not to fall under the sway of this voracious and elegantly structured book. Reality Hunger is ultimately an invigorating shakedown of the literary status quo: recommended for readers, essential for writers.” … Scott Indrisek, Time Out New York
“A spirited polemic on behalf of nonfiction… an important book. The fiction vs. nonfiction debate has become intense in recent years, and Shields cranks it up a notch… smart, stimulating, and aphoristic. …a provocative and entertaining manifesto.” —Blake Morrison, The Guardian, Book of the Week
Reality Hunger is not just a manifesto for a new kind of genre-blurring 21st-century prose; it is also a series of short, sharp provocations. . . . Shields has a point when he nails the traditional contemporary novel for being, for the most part, not at all contemporary. …And I suspect he may be on to something in sensing that his boredom with traditional fiction is symptomatic of a culture-wide exhaustion with the form.… He manages to give bourgeois traditionalists a right good kicking. One cannot help but admired his verve as well as his nerve.” —Sean O'Hagan, London Observer
“Essential reading for both readers and writers. Bold, entertaining, contentious, it pushes us to think about the processes and future of fiction-making, as well as its relation to nonfiction. In short, it shakes us up a bit.” —Stephen Emms, The Guardian
“The book is anything but a monograph; it's a polygraph.” —Toby Litt, Financial Times
“The subtitle of David Shields's Reality Hunger categorizes it as "a manifesto," which is a little like calling a nuclear bomb "a weapon."” —Don McLesse, Kirkus Reviews
“Thrilling to read, even if you disagree with much of it.” —Zadie Smith, The Guardian
“I find Shields's book absorbing, even inspiring. The ideas he raises are so important, his ideas are so compelling, that I raved about this book the whole time I was reading it and have regularly quoted it to friends in the weeks since.” —Jami Attenberg, Bookforum
“The phrase "paradigm shift" is one that induces my gag reflex, but that's what he's up to here. And, dear readers, shift happens.” —Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, Seattle Times
“How can we create a literature that's urgent and vital and true to this particular here and now? Practices of writing, and reading, are shifting. None of us should take current modes of expression for granted. I want people to read his book and passionately debate these issues. I want this discussion to matter. And I want to be part of it.” —Catherine Bush, Toronto Globe and Mail
“It's already become required reading in university spheres, galleys passed from one student to the next like an illicit hit of crack cocaine. I came away from Reality Hunger excited about writing my own fiction, and impatient about books that don't offer these same thrills.” —Sarah Weinman, Flavorwire
“David Shields has put a bullet in the brain of our ridiculously oversimplified compulsion to think of everything as a narrative. His latest book, Reality Hunger, is a story with all the veils—and, for that matter, all the skin and tendon—pulled away. It's a collection of quotations crushed together into a collage about the stories we tell ourselves. Everybody knows that memoirs are bullshit, but they still read them because they have to satisfy the need to force the world into a pretty frame. With Reality Hunger, Shields smashes the frames.” —Paul Constant, The Stranger
“I've just finished reading Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, and I'm lit up by it—astonished, intoxicated, ecstatic, overwhelmed.” —Jonathan Lethem
“One of the most provocative books I've ever read…I think it's destined to become a classic.” —Charles D'Ambrosio
“This is the book our sick-at-heart moment needs—like a sock in the jaw or an electric jolt in the solar plexus—to wake it up.” —Wayne Koestenbaum
“Reality Hunger demolishes all the conventional literary pieties to which nearly everyone pays eager lip service.” —Tim Parks
“Most exciting book of the 21st century so far.” —Ekow Eshun, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (on Twitter)
“Reality Hunger, by David Shields, might be the most intense, thought-accelerating book of the last 10 years.” —Chuck Klosterman (on Twitter)
“David Shields's radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger, is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
“I think Reality Hunger is absolutely wonderful. Exhilarating.” —Mark Leyner
Great interview with him on KCRW here
“David Shields's radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger (Knopf), is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form.” —Vanity Fair
“This is the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010. It's a book that feels at least five years ahead of its time and teaches you how to read it as you go.” —Alex Pappademas, GQ
“……I don't think it would be too strong to say that Shields's book will be a sort of bible for the next generation of culture-makers.” —David Griffith, Bookslut
“This dude's book is the hip-hop album of the year…” —Peter Macia, Fader
“David Shields' new manifesto, Reality Hunger, models a radical rethinking of the rules of artistic appropriation.” —Chris Mitchell, The Week
“One of the great books of the year.” —Jeff Simon, Buffalo News
“Good manifestos propagate. Their seeds cling to journals and blogs and conversations, soon enough sprawling sub-manifestoes of acclamation or rebuttal. After the opening call to action, a variety of minds turn their attention to the same problem. It's the humanist ideal of a dialectic writ large: ideas compete and survive by fitness, not fiat. David Shields's Reality Hunger has just the immodest ambition and exhorter's zeal to bring about this happy scenario.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Entertaining, insightful, and impressively broad… brings to mind an amped-up Nicholson Baker… Most important, it's a guidebook for where literary writing could go in the future… You might not agree with Shields's broadside or his hardheaded conclusions, but it's difficult not to fall under the sway of this voracious and elegantly structured book. Reality Hunger is ultimately an invigorating shakedown of the literary status quo: recommended for readers, essential for writers.” … Scott Indrisek, Time Out New York
“A spirited polemic on behalf of nonfiction… an important book. The fiction vs. nonfiction debate has become intense in recent years, and Shields cranks it up a notch… smart, stimulating, and aphoristic. …a provocative and entertaining manifesto.” —Blake Morrison, The Guardian, Book of the Week
Reality Hunger is not just a manifesto for a new kind of genre-blurring 21st-century prose; it is also a series of short, sharp provocations. . . . Shields has a point when he nails the traditional contemporary novel for being, for the most part, not at all contemporary. …And I suspect he may be on to something in sensing that his boredom with traditional fiction is symptomatic of a culture-wide exhaustion with the form.… He manages to give bourgeois traditionalists a right good kicking. One cannot help but admired his verve as well as his nerve.” —Sean O'Hagan, London Observer
“Essential reading for both readers and writers. Bold, entertaining, contentious, it pushes us to think about the processes and future of fiction-making, as well as its relation to nonfiction. In short, it shakes us up a bit.” —Stephen Emms, The Guardian
“The book is anything but a monograph; it's a polygraph.” —Toby Litt, Financial Times
“The subtitle of David Shields's Reality Hunger categorizes it as "a manifesto," which is a little like calling a nuclear bomb "a weapon."” —Don McLesse, Kirkus Reviews
“Thrilling to read, even if you disagree with much of it.” —Zadie Smith, The Guardian
“I find Shields's book absorbing, even inspiring. The ideas he raises are so important, his ideas are so compelling, that I raved about this book the whole time I was reading it and have regularly quoted it to friends in the weeks since.” —Jami Attenberg, Bookforum
“The phrase "paradigm shift" is one that induces my gag reflex, but that's what he's up to here. And, dear readers, shift happens.” —Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, Seattle Times
“How can we create a literature that's urgent and vital and true to this particular here and now? Practices of writing, and reading, are shifting. None of us should take current modes of expression for granted. I want people to read his book and passionately debate these issues. I want this discussion to matter. And I want to be part of it.” —Catherine Bush, Toronto Globe and Mail
“It's already become required reading in university spheres, galleys passed from one student to the next like an illicit hit of crack cocaine. I came away from Reality Hunger excited about writing my own fiction, and impatient about books that don't offer these same thrills.” —Sarah Weinman, Flavorwire
“David Shields has put a bullet in the brain of our ridiculously oversimplified compulsion to think of everything as a narrative. His latest book, Reality Hunger, is a story with all the veils—and, for that matter, all the skin and tendon—pulled away. It's a collection of quotations crushed together into a collage about the stories we tell ourselves. Everybody knows that memoirs are bullshit, but they still read them because they have to satisfy the need to force the world into a pretty frame. With Reality Hunger, Shields smashes the frames.” —Paul Constant, The Stranger
“I've just finished reading Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, and I'm lit up by it—astonished, intoxicated, ecstatic, overwhelmed.” —Jonathan Lethem
“One of the most provocative books I've ever read…I think it's destined to become a classic.” —Charles D'Ambrosio
“This is the book our sick-at-heart moment needs—like a sock in the jaw or an electric jolt in the solar plexus—to wake it up.” —Wayne Koestenbaum
“Reality Hunger demolishes all the conventional literary pieties to which nearly everyone pays eager lip service.” —Tim Parks
“Most exciting book of the 21st century so far.” —Ekow Eshun, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (on Twitter)
“Reality Hunger, by David Shields, might be the most intense, thought-accelerating book of the last 10 years.” —Chuck Klosterman (on Twitter)
“David Shields's radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger, is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
“I think Reality Hunger is absolutely wonderful. Exhilarating.” —Mark Leyner
Great interview with him on KCRW here
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