We Learn Nothing: Essays

"Kreider locates the right simile and the pith of situations as he carefully catalogues humanity's inventive and manifold ways of failing" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).In We Learn Nothing, satirical cartoonist Tim Kreider turns his funny, brutally honest eye to the dark truths of the human condition, asking big questions about human-sized problems: What if you survive a brush with death and it doesn't change you? Why do we fall in love with people we don't even like? How do you react when someone you've known for years unexpectedly changes genders? With a perfect combination of humor and pathos, these essays, peppered with Kreider's signature cartoons, leave us with newfound wisdom and a unique prism through which to examine our own chaotic journeys through life. These are the conversations you have only with best friends or total strangers, late at night over drinks, near closing time. This edition also includes the sensationally popular essay "The Busy Trap," as seen in the New York Times.

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256 pages

Average rating: 7

2 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

glinglin
Dec 12, 2024
6/10 stars
Some entertaining essays, not quite as profound as I was led to believe, but still substantial, well-written and funny.
Xine
Feb 23, 2023
8/10 stars
I struggled reading this book at first, perhaps it was just the first couple of stories that I didn't find interesting or relatable or just juvenile in a way. However, as I kept on read, that changed when I read the line,"What dooms our best efforts to cultivate empathy and compassion is always, of course, other people." Okay, maybe I can relate to Tim Kreider more than I thought. Then I read "you'd think that given our shared loathing for the Wall/K Street oligarchy that's running this country like a Ponzi scheme we'd be able to put aside our brand loyalties..." I saw someone put into words so spot on describing how our government runs our country.
I enjoyed reading this book , overall, some essays more than others but it's a good read which is sad, honest, sometimes brutally so, but truly funny.

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