James Meacham

A book for lovers of language and literature, in-jokes, self-reference, and barely-hidden humanity. While many reviewers concentrate on its length and verbosity, if you take the challenge, you will be rewarded handsomely. There are no villains and no heroes in Infinite Jest, only humans. While it's true that DFW wrote men better than he did women, his masterpiece is pretty universal in its appeal (for, you know, the literate...ignore the illiterati who lack the resolve or the verbal wattage to find their way through the admittedly dark portions of the book). Some sections haven't aged well; many others have proved remarkably prescient (who knew Johnny Gentle, Famous Crooner, an absurdist character in 1996, would be made flesh in Donald Trump in 2016?). In all, it's one of the few books that repays repeated reading. It's okay not to like this book, but to deny its brilliance would take an act of hubris the likes of which Wallace never even contemplated.