Sublime Physick (book)
From Patrick Madden, the free essayist
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Congratulations.
You have found the Easter egg from my "Dogman
(song)" essay at
March Plaidness. Please
email me (my last name AT byu DOT edu) with your name and
address, and I will send you (first ten respondents) a free
copy of my second book, Sublime
Physick. Let me know if you'd like it signed
and/or dedicated, too. Delivery will take some time, since I
have to order the books from the publisher, get them sent to
me, sign/dedicate them, and send them to you. But never fear,
they will come. Yay!
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| Sublime Physick | ||||
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| Book by Patrick Madden | ||||
| Released | 2016 | |||
| Written at | Home & elsewhere (Lehi & Provo, UT) |
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| Genre | Essay | |||
| Length | 264 pages | |||
| Publisher | University
of Nebraska Press |
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| Writer(s) | Patrick Madden & friends | |||
| Patrick Madden books chronology | ||||
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A follow-up to Patrick Madden’s award-winning debut, this
introspective and exuberant collection of essays is wide-ranging and
wild, following bifurcating paths of thought to surprising
connections. In Sublime Physick, Madden seeks what is common and
ennobling among seemingly disparate, even divisive, subjects,
ruminating on midlife, time, family, forgiveness, loss, originality, a
Canadian rock band, and much more, discerning the ways in which the
natural world (fisica) transcends and joins the realm of ideas
(sublime) through the application of a meditative mind.
In twelve essays that straddle the classical and the contemporary,
Madden transmutes the ruder world into a finer one, articulating with
subtle humor and playfulness how science and experience abut and
intersect with spirituality and everyday life.
Blurbs
“It’s like Montaigne and Sebald got drunk and wrote a book
together.”—Brian
Doyle, author of Mink River and Leaping
“Patrick Madden combines, to a rare degree, a scholar’s knowledge and
an artist’s command of the essay as a literary form. In his hands, the
essay becomes a medium for pondering and celebrating our mysterious
existence. Readers who wish to reflect more deeply on their own lives
will find abundant rewards in these pages.”—Scott
Russell Sanders, author of Earth Works: Selected Essays
“Ingenious and witty, audacious and charming, learned, moving, and
frank: Patrick Madden’s Sublime Physick places him among the most
interesting and essential essayists of our time.”—Mary
Cappello, author of Awkward: A Detour and Called Back
“No one writing essays today does so with a greater awareness of the
genre’s literary traditions than Patrick Madden. Irresistible, with
their meditative musicality and erudite reflections, these essays
brilliantly balance a tough-minded pragmatism with a warm embrace of
the impossible. Like all the great essayists he pays homage to, Madden
seeks to find the miraculous in the mundane, the sublime in the
ordinary, the hazards lurking in our momentary contentment. He
understands perfectly why Emerson thought the joy of essaying lay in
surprise: to surprise their readers, essayists must first surprise
themselves.”—Robert Atwan, series editor of The
Best American Essays