Consider the Lobster
by David Foster Wallace · first published 2010
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Essay collection with sharp, beautifully written pieces on lobster pain, usage and language, and tennis. Short enough to read in chunks, it makes a good first taste of his writing before the fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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It's at this point you'd probably want to go read David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider The Lobster", an assignment he took from (I shit you not) Gourmet Magazine, which begins with a sort of Illinois Country Fair style travelogue from the Maine Lobster Festival and "ends", if you can call the back…
on “In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster” ↗If this line of thinking is new to you, I recommend David Foster Wallace's excellent (if somewhat long) essay, "Consider the Lobster". http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf
on “Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law” ↗Thanks. If you enjoyed that, you might also enjoy David Foster Wallace's famous essay Consider the Lobster, which also examines the issues inherent in comprehending the inner experience of animals, and the ethics involved in our eating of them. I can only find this genius link, unfortunately: https://genius.com/David-foster-wallace-consider-the-lobster...
on “The Octopus: Stable Genius” ↗Consider the lobster - David f. Wallace (good) Brief Interview with Hideous Men - David f Wallace (better) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep -Philip K. Dick (better than I expected) A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗…subscription to Rolling Stone. I do want to read their longer essays though, for example the one on McCain a couple months ago. I never would have thought to read Gourmet. But I loved David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster. I would have paid for that article alone. The rest of the magazine doesn't interest me much. I would also pay for newspaper stories that are more than just daily reporting. I want the investigative…
on “An iTunes for news? Dumb, dumb, dumb” ↗Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's classic "Consider the Lobster" piece on the morality of eating animals, interesting read - http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
on “Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos” ↗David Foster Wallace also has a good essay on this in Consider the Lobster. I think this is the same one: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-0...
on “What kind of funny is Kafka?” ↗If you haven't read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" you should. It's fantastic. http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
on “The enigma behind America's 20-year lobster boom” ↗You might enjoy David Foster Wallace's delightful article "Consider the Lobster" http://www.gourmet.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ma... : "Up until sometime in the 1800s, though, lobster was literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized. Even in…
I recommend reading the essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace :)
on “Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters” ↗…Do Again" the title essay of which is now available on the internet and is a terrific introduction to the late great American author (http://www.amazon.com/Supposedly-Fun-Thing-Never-Again/dp/03...) "Consider the Lobster" (http://www.amazon.com/Consider-Lobster-David-Foster-Wallace/...) Some of the few pieces of physical literature I actually own and chase back every time I lend them to someone.
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗A great read from David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" from Gourmet magazine http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
on “Lobsters and Crabs Feel Pain, Study Shows” ↗…did, though I'm tempted. Just because a theory fits doesn't mean it's right. As I recommended in another comment, I cannot recommend more highly the works and philosophy of David Foster Wallace. Read Consider the Lobster (and then everything else) and tell me what you think. debt suggests in a further comment the angst of college frat parties, news coverage, and pop music. Maybe he's got a point in that the participants…
on “Meditation: Why Bother?” ↗Regarding Sedaris, I highly, highly recommend consuming him in audiobook format. David Foster Wallace's "Consider The Lobster" is also an excellent audiobook; he figured out a way to do the footnotes via audio.
on “Ask HN: Summer Reading Recommendations?” ↗Although not particularly economic, it'd be a shame not to recommend a reading of David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster": http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
on “The voodoo of lobster economics” ↗