Engaging, witty, thoughtful, clever, casual, ebullient, erudite and thoroughly modern * Spectator, on Adam Gopnik *
Gopnik's mind darts about like mercury as he tells his tale * The Times, on Adam Gopnik *
The
distinctive brilliance of Gopnik's essays lies in his ability to pick up a subject one would never have believed possible to think deeply about then cover it in thoughts. He is truly able to see the whole world in a grain of sand -- Alain de Botton * New York Times Book Review, on Adam Gopnik *
Adam Gopnik's
avid intelligence and nimble pen . . . Conscientious, scrupulously savvy * John Updike, on Adam Gopnik *
Adam Gopnik is
a dazzling talent - hilarious, winning and deft * Malcolm Gladwell, on Adam Gopnik *
By virtue of his exceptional observational and analytical powers, acute emotional and moral exactitude, and charmingly rueful sense of humor, he turns in
a riveting and incandescent chronicle of personal evolution vividly set within the ever-morphing, cocaine-stoked crucible of ferocious ambition that was 1980s Manhattan . . .
Arabesque, captivating, self-deprecating, and affecting, Gopnik's cultural and intimate reflections, in league with those of Alfred Kazin and Joan Didion, are rich in surprising moments and delving perceptions into chance, creativity, character, style, conviction, hard work, and love. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *
Gopnik has written with entrancing penetration on just about everything . . . He's
one of the silkiest stylists around -- Christopher Bray * Spectator *
Anyone who worries that artificial intelligence might some day outpace the faulty circuitry inside human heads
should be cheered by the existence of Adam Gopnik. His brain has nothing to fear from electronic competition. It
is an organ housed in a body, kindled by the appetites and affections of the flesh; it operates friskily, risking vast generalities that it clinches with neat, nimble aphorisms . . . Performed by him, such verbal flourishes are both witty and wise. Gopnik is a sleek stylist, and a high-minded, big-hearted moralist into the bargain.
-- Peter Conrad * Observer *
Self-deprecation, his honesty, his humour, his amiable, relaxed acknowledgement of his own foibles. In short, he's enormously likeable . . .
A real treat . . . A piece of real insight, perfectly put . . . Heartening proof of a life lived fully, and fully savoured * Times Literary Supplement *
Gopnik's sentences build into paragraphs that are
architectural feats . . . He is investigative again, tracing this psychic image of his own time, his own New York * Guardian *
