This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life Hardcover – April 14, 2009

I honestly do not even know where to begin in describing this book. Fosters concise insights into the human condition are a revelation. I've purchased this book several times as a gift for friends, family, and co-workers because of my belief in the usefulness of this book. That's a funny way to describe a book isn't it? Useful. Certainly books can expand the mind and offer new ways of thinking about things, but often the enlightenment they offer is not practical. Plato's Republic is bound to give you plenty to think about and illuminate your understanding the human condition, but how can you truly put those lessons to use in the modern era? This is Water is a guide to life. Foster offers scenarios we are all familiar with and our reactions to them. He then proposes an alternate approach to these mundane activities that can relieve the stress and tension they so often create. My two takeaways from this book would be mindfulness and humility. Mindfulness in understanding that you are not alone in how you feel and that unknown circumstances you could sympathize with may be at factor in your interaction with others. Humility in that you do not know everything and that you are not the center of the universe. The ideas in This is Water are bound to be so obvious that you might dismiss it altogether, but that's the point. Foster explains how often it's the things right in front of us that we take for granted and the solution is putting that understanding in the forefront of our thoughts more often. William S. Burroughs famously said "The job of the artist is to show you what you already know." And in my opinion Foster satisfies that function.

Short, succinct but pierces the heart. This may be a tiny book but loaded with T-Truth.My favourite takeaways from it:"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.""Your education really is the job of a lifetime, and it commences — now."

Such a touching and short statement. I bought a pile of these, and give them to friends, graduates, and a few special people who are struggling with their human condition. These little books are gems. Catch DFW on U-Tube in audio only, delivering this commencement speech to Kenyon College. Read it and re-read it prn.

Wallace cuts through the fog of popular psychology with refreshing clarity. The plain truth, he tells us, is that life and the world do not revolve around you. The sooner we figure this out, and sort our lives accordingly, the more likely we are to muddle through with a reasonable chance of staying sane. Sad that Wallace mentions suicide a number of times. Was he even then perhaps considering…?

I lovely short boo..each page reads almost like a Japanese koan, which was why, I think, it is written this way. One sentence to a page.. The texture of the boo also makes it a nice formal read. One can stop and reflect upon each Wise sentence as one carefully absorbs the rich meaning behind what is said and how the author chooses to say it. The book presentation is part of what the author intended to enhance meaning and it works! The audio book does not let in these pauses and the meaning and power of the words suffer from it. This book is NOT for listening, but is a short enough thing to have, to touch and to think upon as one goes through it... It clearly explains deep concepts about how adults should approach complex issues which require more than knee-jerk thoughts in response to what is written. The texture of this little book, it pages, its small size, all belie the raw power of the thoughts expressed so gently and with compassion for the reader and the author, both. DEEP nut simple. Lie zen for the American mind.

I am a big DFW fan, so I was bound to like this anyway. This is a great hard bound edition that looks like it cost double - really, really nice. It is really meant for college grads, but the life lessons give a good head start to high school grads as well. My daughter is a deep thinker, so it was a good thought stimulator for her. This was a good traditional graduation gift and a great way to share my appreciation of DFW.I will definitely purchase another copy when my next child graduates.

A quick reminder of the powerful thoughts and words of DFW. A quick read with some nice takeaways. A good kick in the butt to remember that we have choices when it comes to how we treat the people and situations around us.

I’ve picked up and reread this book three times since I bought it, and keep it in my coffee table for an easy grab. It only takes a short while to read, and you feel better once you’re done. I’ve since bought a couple as gifts since then, too. Very thought provoking.