David's Reviews > Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times: A Collection of All Original Essays from Today's (and Tomorrow's) Young Authors on the State of the Art -- ... Hustle -- in the Age of Information Overload

An anthology where writers inspect their navels and brood about how hard it is to be a writer in these "unreaderly times".

Hmmm. What's the appropriate response to such an enormous bolus of self-absorbed whining? How about "Cry me a f**ing river!".

Oh, not all of the pieces are dreadful. Sure, there is the expected dreck from the inexcusable, untalented pond scum that is Neal Pollock. Vacuous inanities from people I had never heard of before reading this book, but now know to avoid: Glen David Gold, Benjamin Nugent, Tom Bissell, Robert Lanham, Dan Kennedy. But partial redemption is offered by Paul Collins, Nell Freudenberger, Vivien Mejia, Meghan Daum, and K.M. Sohnlein. In general, the women contributors to this collection are considerably less obviously self-absorbed and way less obnoxious than the men.

On balance, it's hard to find a reason to give this book anything other than the most lukewarm of recommendations.