Synopses & Reviews
A one-man think tank, Paul Goodman wrote more than 30 books, most of them before his decade of fame as a social critic in the 1960s. Goodman in those earlier days thought of himself mostly as an old-fashioned man of letters, and to do justice to his wide-ranging interests and growing activism, this compendium provides excerpts that span his entire career, from the bestselling Growing Up Absurd to landmark books on anarchism, community planning, education, poetics, and psychotherapy. Goodman's fiction and poetry are represented by The Empire City, a comic novel; prize-winning short stories; and poems that once led America's most respected poetry reviewer, Hayden Carruth, to exclaim, "Not one dull page. Its almost unbelievable."
Review
"No one writing now in America makes better sense of literary subjects." The Nation
Review
"Goodman, like all real novelists, is, at bottom, a moralist. What really interests him are the various ways in which human beings living in a modern metropolis gain, keep, or lose their integrity and sense of selfhood." W. H. Auden, poet
Review
"As this decade in America careens, recoils, and shrieks along, Paul Goodman appears increasingly as our most exemplary intellectual, that is, the most deeply representative and the most worthy one." Washington Post
Review
"Any page by Paul Goodman will give you not only originality and brilliance but wisdom, that is, something to think about. He is our peculiar, urban, twentieth-century Thoreau, the quintessential American mind of our time." Hayden Carruth, poet and essayist
Review
"It was that voice of his that seduced methat direct, cranky, egotistical, generous American voice." Susan Sontag, novelist and public intellectual
Review
"This celebratory compendium is as pertinent today as when Goodman first furiously put pen to paper, and while there may be few concrete answers, Goodman's way of seeing is riveting and decidedly infectious." Publishers Weekly (July 23, 2011)
Synopsis
A one-man think tank, Paul Goodman wrote more than 30 books, most of them before his decade of fame as a social critic in the 1960s. Goodman in those earlier days thought of himself mostly as an old-fashioned man of letters, and to do justice to his wide-ranging interests and growing activism, this compendium provides excerpts that span his entire career, from the bestselling
Growing Up Absurd to landmark books on anarchism, community planning, education, poetics, and psychotherapy. Goodman's fiction and poetry are represented by
The Empire City, a comic novel; prize-winning short stories; and poems that once led America's most respected poetry reviewer, Hayden Carruth, to exclaim, "Not one dull page. It's almost unbelievable."
Synopsis
A one-man think-tank for the New Left, Paul Goodman wrote over thirty books, most of them before his decade of fame as a social critic in the Sixties. A Paul Goodman Reader that does him justice must be a compendious volume, with excerpts not only from best-sellers like Growing Up Absurd, but also from his landmark books on education, community planning, anarchism, psychotherapy, language theory, and poetics. Samples as well from The Empire City, a comic novel reviewers compared to Don Quixote, prize-winning short stories, and scores of poems that led America's most respected poetry reviewer, Hayden Carruth, to exclaim, "Not one dull page. It's almost unbelievable."
Goodman called himself as an old-fashioned man of letters, which meant that all these various disciplines and occasions added up to a single abiding concern for the human plight in perilous times, and for human promise and achieved grandeur, love and hope.
About the Author
"Goodman, like all real novelists, is, at bottom, a moralist. What really interests him are the various ways in which human beings living in a modern metropolis gain, keep, or lose their integrity and sense of selfhood." W. H. Auden, poet"As this decade in America careens, recoils, and shrieks along, Paul Goodman appears increasingly as our most exemplary intellectual, that is, the most deeply representative and the most worthy one." Washington Post"Any page by Paul Goodman will give you not only originality and brilliance but wisdom, that is, something to think about. He is our peculiar, urban, twentieth-century Thoreau, the quintessential American mind of our time." Hayden Carruth, poet and essayist"It was that voice of his that seduced methat direct, cranky, egotistical, generous American voice." Susan Sontag, novelist and public intellectual"No one writing now in America makes better sense of literary subjects." The Nation