Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73005 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this compendium of everyone who was anyone who ever spent a moment alone, readers bump fleetingly into Kurt Cobain, French Resistance fighters, the Lone Ranger ("Tonto notwithstanding"), Michelangelo, Alexander Pope, John Lennon, cowboys, Saint Anthony and other solo acts. Rufus, the books editor of East Bay Express, views Degas's plain-faced dancers as "pretty ballerinas" whom the artist leaves every time he exits his studio, and Warhol's biography as "tellingly titled Loner at the Ball." She chases her motif, not so much a manifesto as a cri de coeur, through an assortment of perspectives: religion, advertising, clothes, crime, art, eccentricity, environment, literature, religion and popular culture. She also identifies "pseudoloners" like Theodore Kaczynski and Jesus Christ (who "was too good at guiding crowds to have been one of us"). There's an us/them tone to this book that makes one wonder who the audience might be. The "us" people "do not need writers to tell us how lovely apartness is"; the "them" people will surely weary of being identified as "Nonloners. The world at large. The mob." Taken in column-sized doses, Rufus may be entertaining and informative, but her book feels as if too much random information has been cut-and-pasted together.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews (January 1, 2003)
"A founding manifesto for an organization of self-contained people.... A clever and spirited defense."

About the Author
ANNELI RUFUS, the prize-winning author of numerous books, lives near the 38th Parallel.

Customer Reviews

"Loner" does not mean "psychopath"
This is book is really just a series of observations about what it's like to live "out of the box," so to speak. Our culture is based on extraverts who constantly need entertainment and group membership, so the "loners" are not understood. They're suspected to be weird, eccentric, mentally ill, child predators, or serial killers. It's very interesting, and encouraging to those of us who sometimes (or often) find it necessary to shun all human contact in order to find our center. Message: being a loner is nothing to be ashamed of.

A self-indulgent rage against a machine that isn't there.
Now for my self-indulgent rant about the rant that is "Party of One"

The book begins with the author speaking to her experience as a child who enjoyed playing alone. It isn't a few paragraphs before her superiority shows (the other girls didn't know France was next to Germany). Unfortunately I felt the author kept this sneering tone throughout the entire book which touches famous loners, where loners have problems in daily life and how it is alright to be a loner. Through this journey we are reminded again and again that life as a loner is a tough one when you have to deal with a society that Just Doesn't Understand. And there is little middle-ground here, the brush with which the world is pained by Mrs Rufus is a wide one and no concession is made for another other then loners and "the herd" until her husband is introduced later in the book as a sort of semi-loner. The message from the "famous loners" sections is that if you are a loner you will grow up to become a writer, or possibly Einstien.

All in all this book annoyed me with its stereotypes of loners, the division of the world into loners and non-loners, its moaning about the media use of the word "loner" negatively and its general persecution complex. I did though appreciate the descriptions of what it is like to be a loner and very much enjoyed the cover of the book. 2 stars.

Spoke to me in many ways
I'm not exactly an introvert, but still have many things in common with loners. I'm a person that goes to parties, but has to go outside or to a quiet area to take a breather for a hour or so every time. The best parties IMHO are those that are outside, so a person can go to a quiet area, instead of being trapped in a room or rooms.

She pointed out some things I had not really looked at in my own life, and explained things I didn't understand. I'm thinking there are lots of people like me, that like to be around people, to a point, then just have to get away to decompress.

I'm also thinking it would be a good book to give to people that are not loners, so they might get a little bit of understanding.

So, if you have ever felt overwhelmed with the "mob," you may find this book speaks to you.