Against Everything

Mark Greif writes a contrarian, skeptical prose that is at the same time never cynical: it opens out on to beauty and the possibility of change -- Zadie Smith
Matches brilliant critique with improbable optimism. His essays risk embarrassment to analyse the irritations of urban life - hipsters, foodies, gym-goers - so that we might see these characters in ourselves, and treat them with, if not more kindness, more interest. -- Spectator [Books of the Year]
It makes you think ... Greif thinks that a whole lot will have to change before real choice is possible. Until then, it's not enough to be against the box-office and the real-estate section and the best-seller list. Until then, we have to be against ... everything. -- Loui Menand * New Yorker *
Mark Greif's essay on the Kafkaesque nature of the modern gym, Against Exercise, is already a classic; and his new book, Against Everything tells us it's not just the gym, it's also our music, our culture, our political life - everything about us, in fact - that is right out of Kafka. -- Aravind Adiga * Guardian [Books of the Year] *
The best claim to be his generation's finest essayist comes in the concluding essay on Thoreau, the Occupy movement and his own generation. Taken as a whole the book is a powerful injunction to look, listen and reflect, our surest means of defiance against the encroaching dimness. -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard *
These smart and bracingly negative essays will break you out of your Facebook-induced stupor. * Esquire *
[M]aybe you've missed cofounder Mark Greif's years of essayistic genius for [n+1]. This book is a one stop shop to fix that. In thoughtful, deeply informed, nuanced works of criticism, Greif makes the case "Against Exercise," questions "What Was the Hipster?" and delves into "Octomom and the Market in Babies." . . . [F]ans of in-depth cultural criticism will have the perfect companion in this compendium. -- Claire Fallon * Huffington Post *
Embodies a return to the pleasures of critical discourse at its most cerebral and personable. Greif brings to mind a host of critics from William Hazlitt to Lionel Trillling, but most of all he suggests it is possible to write about culture with a reverence for language and a passion for what has come before. I would read anything he writes, anywhere. * New York Times Book Review *
Politically engaged, coolly stylish and often drily funny. * Guardian *