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Reader recommendation: Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

  • By Jeff Barbalics, Cleveland

I am currently reading Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky. It is an interesting book which takes place as Lipsy drives Wallace around for five days in 1996 on the book tour for Wallace's magnum opus, "Infinite Jest." Reading the book in view of Wallace's 2008 suicide offers insight into the problems that Wallace was dealing with, even amidst the glory, fame, and success. Wallace's pleas for caring for each other and his view of his life purpose were particularly touching, as in this quote from him: "If you can think of times in your life that you've treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself.  And I think it's probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we're here for is to learn how to do it." This is a moving and fascinating encounter with a troubled writer.

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Mark Sappenfield
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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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