Book 10 : A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

All day, I've been thinking of what I could say about this book. I keep typing out a plot synopsis, which is interesting enough in this case. But there's just so much to this book. I was looking around online to see what others had to say about it, when I came upon the following quote by the author himself :

"But criticism, for the most part, comes from the opposite place that book-enjoying should come from. To enjoy art one needs time, patience, and a generous heart, and criticism is done, by and large, by impatient people who have axes to grind. The worst sort of critics are (analogy coming) butterfly collectors - they chase something, ostensibly out of their search for beauty, then, once they get close, they catch that beautiful something, they kill it, they stick a pin through its abdomen, dissect it and label it. The whole process, I find, is not a happy or healthy one. Someone with his or her own shit figured out, without any emotional problems or bitterness or envy, instead of killing that which he loves, will simply let the goddamn butterfly fly, and instead of capturing and killing it and sticking it in a box, will simply point to it - "Hey everyone, look at that beautiful thing" - hoping everyone else will see the beautiful thing he has seen. Just as no one wants to grow up to be an IRS agent, no one should want to grow up to maliciously dissect books. "

So, hey.

Everyone.

Look at that beautiful thing.

Also :

"We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to."

10/10
YTD:
Books read : 10
Pages read : 2,893
Currently reading : Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson & Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman