This is a very ad-hoc explanation on why I think David Foster Wallace is poised to become my favorite author. MAIN THESIS: It's not so much that he is an extremely talented writer in the sense of putting together words and sentences and paragraphs to get across ideas. It's the fact that the content of his words and sentences and paragraphs are the work of an extremely talented thinker, and an extremely talented empathizer. You get the feeling reading him that he cares deeply about how you, the reader, will ingest his words and sentences and paragraphs, and he takes extreme care not to treat you as a lesser but as an equal. It's like he gets the fact that without a reader his words would cease to exist, and without understanding they would meet the same fate. And its in this framework of empathy that his thoughts are so easily understood and appreciated, and taken with more meaning than if he was a capital A Author with capital A Authority because he writes and you read. Fortunately, and this is really the crux of the whole thing, are that his ideas and thoughts are far and away deeper and more intense and more see-throughy than most anything I have ever read. It's a combination worth spending time with.

Here are some DFW links I've collected:

Remembrances:

• http://www.kottke.org/08/09/remembering-david-foster-wallace
• http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/wrt_dfw
• http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

Writings/Speeches/Videos:

• http://www.marginalia.org/dfwkenyoncommencement.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?
• http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=david+foster+wallace+charlie+rose&emb=0&aq=0&oq=David+Foster+Wallace#ei=5090&en=716968175e36505e&ex=1313726400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all