Attention

A wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and rule-bending selection of non-fiction from Joshua Cohen, a major American writer (New York Times), Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction is a powerful and fresh work of social criticism, examining the ways we can reclaim the power of attention in an age of constant distraction. A fully realized work created from a selection of previously published and new essays, memoir, criticism, letters and diaries, Joshua Cohens first collection of essays covers an extraordinary array of topics: politics, literature, art, music, travel, the media, and psychology, on subjects ranging from Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, animals in literature, Gustav Mahler, Aretha Franklin, Edward Snowden, Gordon Lish, the closing of the Ringling Bros. circus, Google, Thomas Pynchon, and English-language publishing in Paris. In thirty essays and forty short interludes, Cohen directs his sharp gaze out upon the world, exhibiting his deep erudition and ability to draw connections between seemingly unlike things, showing us how to look at a world overflowing with information without becoming daunted. In each piece, Cohen projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his, and a voice as witty, powerful, funny, and distinct as any in American letters.