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What on Earth Have I Done?: Stories, Observations, and Affirmations
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| List Price: | $12.95 |
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Product Description
“My house in Seattle is across the street from an elementary school. A high fence blocks my view, but I’m close enough to overhear conversations. One morning…I heard a car door opened, then slammed shut…a woman’s voice came blasting over the fence: “BILLY…WHAT…ON…EARTH…HAVE…YOU…DONE?”…My own mother asked me the same question. Often. And I, in my turn asked my own children, who, no doubt have followed the same line of inquiry with their kids…”
Robert Fulghum’s new book begins with a question we’ve all asked ourselves: “What on Earth have I done?” As Fulghum finds out, the answer is never easy and, almost always, surprising. For the last couple of years, Fulghum has been traveling the world - from Seattle to the Moab Desert to Crete - looking for a few fellow travelers interested in thinking along with him as he delights in the unexpected: trick-or-treating with your grandchildren dressed like a large rabbit, pots of daffodils blooming in mid-November, a view of the earth from outer space, the mysterious night sounds of the desert, every man's trip to a department store to buy socks, the raucous all-night long feast that is Easter in Greece, the trials and tribulations of plumbing problems and the friendship one can strike up with someone who doesn't share the same language. What on Earth Have I Done? is an armchair tour of everyday life as seen by Robert Fulghum, one of America’s great essayists, a man who has two feet planted firmly on the earth, one eye on the heavens and, at times, a tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Fulghum writes to his fellow travelers, with a sometimes light heart, about the deep and vexing mysteries of being alive and says, “This is my way of bringing the small boat of my life within speaking distance of yours. Hello…”
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #95570 in Books
- Published on: 2008-10-14
- Released on: 2008-10-14
- Format: Bargain Price
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Twenty years after his All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten became a record-breaking bestseller, Fulghum's authorial voice is still distinctive and his tone welcomingly upbeat, but this new collection of short pieces suffers from self-indulgence, roping in too many vague and inconsequential essays. The majority of the book falls into three sections, one for each of Fulghum's homes-Seattle, Moab, Utah and the island of Crete-and the strongest section is the Cretan, containing some lovely, incisive essays on his indomitable Greek housekeeper, "The Invincible Ioannoulla." Elsewhere his writing is well-meaning but feather-light while taking on topics like holidays, history, "players" and the conversations of strangers; even in the midst of terminal naivety, however, Fulghum's able to land an unexpected, resonant thought: "I walked on with the dog of my imagination running unleashed through the bushes of my brain, looking for a place to unload." Though these worthwhile passages and brief, shining moments make Fulghum's dissolution into wispy koans ("Go on. Escape over the walls of your asylum.") all the more disappointing, fans of Fulghum's storytelling will find much to savor.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
ROBERT FULGHUM is the bestselling author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and numerous other books. He grew up in Waco, TX. He now divides his time among Seattle, Utah, and Crete.
Customer Reviews
Vintage Fulghum
I've long been a fan of Fulghum's work, and I can't believe that the other reviewer here would only rate this one a "one-star" effort. This book is vintage Fulghum - essays on a huge number of topics, most of which were profound, funny and touching.
This one's worth the purchase if only for Fulghum's idea of "converstaion lifeboats" - brilliant. Or the update to the story of the mirror.
Fulghum, as usual, shines light into darkened places, and makes the lives of his readers a little better than he found them.
That's 5 stars for me.
Classic Fulghum
Once again Fulghum has demonstrated his innate ability to observe life as it unfolds. I love reading his books because he could relate to the ordinary and make it funny. I particularly like the first chapter on Mother Questions when he mentioned, "Most of the time a kid doesn't think about what he's doing or why. That is the privilege of childhood." Then he mentioned about the perks of seniority in chapter 22 as he gorged on sweets in the aftermath of Halloween, "I do not eat candy around them because their mother is around. I take the candy surplus, as a favor to their parents, and eat it alone whenever I want."
Classic Fulghum.
I don't know what you've done - lately.
I have been a huge fan of Fulghum's for many years. However...
I lived in Japan too, I traveled to many different countries in Europe too, and I too lived for 15 months just a few kilometers from the place he stays on Crete and from where he writes, but will entertain NO fan mail or emails or visits - as if the hoards are there on that rural rock to mob him. And so even in the past couple of books, as he made a huge deal about eating a breakfast of Japanese tea, Cretan honey, and some kind of European bread, I thought: "big friggin deal". That stuff is in my cabinet daily. He truly has departed from his earlier brilliant, heart-inside-out, magical musings and observations on life, those poignant stories of every little person out there strung together by a common bond of being exceptional even as we are average, to a gloating narration of his travels all over the world (yep, he's got the money now) without any of those wonderful tales. So what, you're walking down some cobble stoned street in ancient Sardinia...AND??
It's truly a sad day when the most gifted writers lose that hunger to understand life and people, and to write about it in the way Fulghum used to, and instead, they replace it with words hammered out while they take themselves on a never-ending vacation, living on their laurels.
