3.7
Essays. Some really made my brain work and a couple at the end were not for me. ( )

It’s such a treat to read any essay by Jamison. I wanted to consume this book fast, but I tried to limit myself to an essay a day. Every essay in this collection is wonderful. I feel like I learn something new with each essay, along with her life intertwined. She writes so beautifully, it’s a treat. ( )

Ok, I stupidly thought this was a book of short stories even though right on the cover it reads “essays.” I share this because I am glad I caught my mistake after the first essay, so I could enjoy the rest of the book as the first selection makes a terrible short story, but an incredible essay. Ha!

I loved this essay collection of longing and obsessions. Like all collections, there are hits and misses, but her writing was so incredible I didn’t even mind the ones I didn’t connect to as strongly.

I have so many pictures of quotes from this book. I loved it. ( )

I loved this book. The essays are about very original subjects that piqued my curiosity. The writing is very clear and organized. Her arguments are well thought through and personal. ( )

In this second collection of Leslie Jamison's essays, she writes about a variety of subjects, some very personal and some less so -- although her own perspective and thoughts are always very much part of the story. There's a piece about the virtual environment Second Life, and one about an unusual whale that humans can't resist projecting themselves onto in various ways. There is an essay that's partly about Las Vegas and partly about two very different romantic relationships in Jamison's life. There's one about fairy tales and the experience of being a stepmother. There are a couple that are extended looks at the works of others (James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and the photography of Annie Appel, who kept returning to take pictures of the same Mexican family for decades), which I didn't find nearly as compelling as Jamison writing about her own experiences, but which were certainly still good. There are essays about pregnancy and eating disorder and Civil War photographs, and a museum in Croatia dedicated to mementos of failed relationships. So it covers rather a lot of ground, although in ways that somehow manage to make it all feel emotionally or thematically connected.

I do think, overall, this didn't wow me quite as much as her earlier collection The Empathy Exams did, although that might simply be because I had a better idea of what to expect from this volume and it took me less by surprise. That's a very high bar to meet, in any case, and no matter what kind of comparisons I might or might not draw, Jamison does very much continue to prove here that she's a damned good writer. I am deeply impressed by her honesty, and by the way she thoughtfully reflects on things and then reflects on her own reflections in ways that, in the hands of a lesser writer, could feel like self-absorbed navel-gazing, but instead feel to me as if they express something deeply profound and recognizable about the experience of being human. Even when I find myself disagreeing with her -- and I definitely wanted to argue some points in the essay she wrote about children who supposedly remember past lives, if nowhere else -- I always felt a very real respect and appreciation for her and her writing. ( )