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Reporting, Essays, and Criticism
by Ian Frazier
Selected pieces on nature, history, politics, and urban culture from a master of the nonfiction narrative.
Writing on subjects as divergent as the mega-fires that burned the grasslands of the Great Plains in 2018, the tragic secret life of the manufacturer of maraschino cherries, the world's largest beaver dam, and the invasive Burmese pythons of the Florida Everglades, Ian Frazier captures the multiplicity, the strangeness, and the wonder of contemporary life.
This collection of pieces―consisting of features and reportage for The New Yorker beginning in 1970, articles on topics such as COVID and rereading Lolita fifty years later, and work published in the last year―showcases the wide-ranging play of Frazier's imagination. Astute and engaged, he is the supreme chronicler of the everyday, a kind of social and political anthropologist. Fifty years of keen observation and irrepressible curiosity come together in The Snakes That Ate Florida, establishing Frazier as nothing less than the greatest practitioner of the form.
"Frazier was born to be a magazine writer, quick to discern between a meaningful vignette and a subject for a long-form story. Here he gathers examples of both ... a greatest-hits collection." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A rich smorgasbord from a master of his form." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This information about The Snakes That Ate Florida was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ian Frazier's books, all published by FSG, include Paradise Bronx, Great Plains, Travels in Siberia, Dating Your Mom, and many other classic works of nonfiction and humor. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
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