The Future Dictionary of America: A Book to Benefit Progressive Causes in the 2004 Elections Featuring Over 170 of America's Best Writers and Artists

by Jonathan Safran Foer

Book Overview

This book was conceived by Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, and the staff of McSweeney's as a way to bring over a hundred authors together to promote progressive causes in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193241620X
• ISBN13: 9781932416206
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: McSweeney's
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Funny.

The Future Dictionary is worth every penny and it is not that expensive. Also, it comes with a bonus CD that has some good bands and good tracks on it. The definitions range from silly, serious, sad, thoughtful, and even just mean at times, but always funny and insightful. Hundreds of writers and artists submitted work to put this book together and if you are a fan of McSweeneys, Dave Eggars, David Sedaris, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kurt Vonnegut, or any other great writer from this era, this is a book that you must have.

One of a kind

I've never read a book quite like this. It's delightful, philosophical, inventive, poignant, unique, funny. The "dictionary" format lets you read it a paragraph at a time or in long stretches; a perfect book for the crapper or a long plane ride. Most importantly, the book reminds us there is a future. All we need now is a more useful present. If we are lucky, this book will help us get there.

unique, fun

This is a really unique book. I kept hearing about how it was supposed to be really funny, and some of it is funny, but a lot of the entries are philosophical, or just artsy writing, or fun to think about in a science fiction kind of way; some of them aren't really political at all. Though I don't agree with conservative politics I don't like personal, mean attacks on people with different opinions and I was happy to find that overall, this book isn't caustic. With a few exceptions. Mostly its just fun, and the $$ is for a good cause. It also contains some interesting extras like the Declaration of Independence and a charting of the evolution of Indo-European language families (I don't want to give a lot of stuff away). It's definitely worth having, I would like to give it 4 1/2 stars. But, the CD that comes with the book is truly a jewel and it definitely deserves 5 stars. The CD contains several folksy type songs, several good rock songs, a couple of punk songs, a good r & b song, an interesting a capella song, and a remake of a real 19th century campaign ditty.

Ha ha ha sob

What a funny book, but also sad. This is exactly the kind of thing that will make people think about this year's issues without giving them headaches. Superb work generally, but I especially like Sarah Vowell, Robert Olen Butler, and Ben Greenman. I hope this has the desired effect.

A funny and trenchant look "back" at our time

Who would think of reading a dictionary straight through, and for laughs? And who would have thought of writing one that anyone would want to? This "future dictionary", like all good utopian and dystopian literature, is a mordant comment on our age. Ostensibly published at some distant point in the future -- perhaps 100 years from now or more, judging from some of the entries -- the dictionary consists mostly of invented words, and invented definitions of familiar words. Some of it is slightly absurdist, some of it reflects a broad critique of the state of our culture, and some of it is a scalpel-edged swipe at the outrages of our current administration. The 150 or so writers who contributed entries for the book obviously had a great time. It is hard to imagine that they were not smiling to themselves as they wrote their definitions, just as it is hard to imagine any reasonably conscious American failing to smile as he or she reads them. Art and ideas can have consequences in the larger social and political arena, and the creators of this book obviously hope to have an impact. Whether or not it contributes to the outcome on November 2, though, this is a terrifically well conceived and well executed piece of work.