Posts Tagged ‘The New Tenants’

Is Your Glass 'Half Empty'?

September 20th, 2010

For New York Times Bestselling author David Rakoff the glass is half empty — but always funny.  In his new book, HALF EMPTY, the inimitably witty Rakoff defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed.  Through stories both reportorial and personal Rakoff follows several of the paths we are told will lead to bliss only to discover that his real subject is the variety of human disappointment. While making good sport out of cultural phenomena like the tortured Jewish love affair with pork or the positive psychology movement, Rakoff has more on his mind than satirizing the mindless optimism of our benighted age.  He has crafted a manifesto of sorts, one that praises all the scorned emotions—dread, anxiety, misgiving, to name a few—that offer different, more fruitful forms of human satisfaction.  

By turns funny, serious, and seriously funny, Rakoff’s signature combination of deadly wit and human sympathy will have you positively reveling in the power of negativity.

Warning: No inspirational life lessons will be found on these pages! 

Read An Excerpt

Buy Half Empty
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound | Powells | Random House

Listen to David Rakoff on NPR’s Morning Edition