Shop Captain America
$0.50 with 97 percent savings
Digital List Price: $17.99

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

eBook features:
  • Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
  • In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

An original collection of incandescent cultural criticism, both experimental and personal, full of pragmatic advice for how to live a considered, joyful existence in our era of screen living and hipster irony, by a Gen-X Princeton professor and contributor to The New York Times

The essays in The Other Serious examine the signature phenomena of our moment: the way our lives contradict themselves, how exaggeration and excess seep into our collective subconscious, why gender is becoming more rather than less complicated, and how we interact with the material things that surround us. It is a book about the delicacy and bluntness of American life, about how pop culture sticks its finger deeply into the ethical dilemmas of our time, and how to negotiate between the old and the new, the high and the low, the global and the local, the sacred and the profane. At the heart of these reflections lies a central question: What should you do when you don't know what to do?

Taken together, these essays comprise a guide for the overhaul of "the administrativersity" of contemporary American life, a bureaucratic prison where the brain needn't work anymore. These pieces investigate the writer's own way of thinking—putting forth new ideas, questioning them, and urging the reader to adopt the same spirit of critical reexamination.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Like having a late-night talk with a good, advice-ready friend.… [It] will compel you to look at your own behaviors.” — Chicago Tribune

“Few essay collections are as experimental, personal, or full of pragmatic advice on how to navigate contemporary culture.” — Esquire.com

“Fascinating.... Equal parts pop culture, self-help, and philosophy, Wampole’s musings consider the gray areas of American life....Weighty yet entertaining.” — Booklist

“Wampole is a sharp and original observer. Her essays crackle with metaphor and precision…. This is essential for anyone who cares about the future of America.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“Christy Wampole has a nimble mind and a big heart...Reading The Other Serious is like going for a long walk on a clear cold day - everything feels challenging and electric, tingling with clarity, full of possibility.” — Leslie Jamison

“Her astute cultural criticism brings new light to topics I find myself obsessed with.” — Michele Filgate, Salon

From the Back Cover

The essays in The Other Serious examine the signature phenomena of our moment: the way our lives contradict themselves, how exaggeration and excess seep into our collective subconscious, why gender is becoming more complicated rather than less, and how we interact with the material things that surround us. It is a book about the delicacy and bluntness of American life, about how pop culture sticks its finger deep into the ethical dilemmas of our time, and how to negotiate between the old and the new, the high and the low, the global and the local, the sacred and the profane. At the heart of these reflections lies a central question: What should you do when you don’t know what to do?

Taken together, these essays comprise a guide for the overhaul of “the administrativersity” of contemporary American life, a bureaucratic prison where the brain needn’t work anymore. These pieces investigate the writer’s own way of thinking—putting forth new ideas, questioning them, and urging the reader to adopt the same spirit of critical reexamination.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00NEPDGRM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reprint edition (July 7, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 7, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2702 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 253 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Christy Wampole
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
21 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Customers say

Customers find the book thought-provoking and relevant to their lives. They describe it as an engaging read with insightful modern philosophy. Readers also mention it's one of the best books they've read in a long time.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

4 customers mention "Thought provoking"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and enlightening. They say it's full of insights, relevant to their lives, and makes a huge impact on them. The book is considered great modern philosophy and quite relevant to our lives. However, some readers feel the book is intellectually agnostic and doesn't commit to any one view.

"...of ideas and observations that, while seemingly obvious, are full of insight...." Read more

"...Seriousness is middle seeking....The Other Seriousness is intellectually agnostic; it doesn’t commit to a particular school of thought or to some..." Read more

"one of the best books I've read in a long time! Made a huge impact on me and pushed me to think about my life and the world in a whole new way...." Read more

"Pages of sheer reading and thought provoking reading and pleasure!!!" Read more

3 customers mention "Reading quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's reading quality. They find it refreshing, one of the best books they've read in a long time, and say it's one of the best books ever.

"...I found this book tremendously refreshing, and have given it to others to read as well...." Read more

"one of the best books I've read in a long time! Made a huge impact on me and pushed me to think about my life and the world in a whole new way...." Read more

"Pages of sheer reading and thought provoking reading and pleasure!!!" Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2015
    This book was a gift from a very dear friend, and I found in it a number of ideas and observations that, while seemingly obvious, are full of insight. Some reviewers have said that it's trite and full of evasive nonsense; I found, however, that those observations miss the point. Being aware of and fully conscious of what's around would allow one to better criticize it. She calls for a self-awareness that is desperately needed in our modern society, and advocates for personal responsibility to one's own life, as opposed to accepting blindly the structures as they appear or blaming whatever structures currently exist. No great cultural change can come without many personal changes first.
    I found this book tremendously refreshing, and have given it to others to read as well. It is great modern philosophy, and quite relevant to our lives.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
    Dr. Wampole advocates moving beyond the nihilism of Generation X and the ironic posturing of Generation Y. She proposes an “Other Seriousness” that abandons hipster ironic eclecticism for a middle-path eclecticism that is less mean spirited. She states: “The Other Seriousness is middle seeking....The Other Seriousness is intellectually agnostic; it doesn’t commit to a particular school of thought or to some specific method. It borrows at will...” “The Other Seriousness is calm...attentive...improvisational...curatorial...joyful.”

    While very pleasant sounding, the Other Seriousness falters as it approaches controversial topics. For example, Dr. Wampole states that universities today “feel more and more like expanding cubicles.” (231) “College is now where you go to network and to fulfill requirements.” (232) This is very true, and the reason why students act like corporate drones is that universities themselves have been turned into predatory corporate entities run for the benefit of their administrative elites.

    Rather than advocating a change in power and priorities at the universities (which really could change student culture), Dr. Wampole encourages a hypothetical student to ignore this reality and double-down on developing his or her consciousness. After all, she writes: “You don’t have to put on your earning face yet.” (232) This is terrible advice to give a student when the university parking meter is running at $40,000 a year.

    Any student or visitor to an American university can quickly see that real institutional power is vested in the central administration. Dr. Wampole, however, speaks for three generations of academics who have sought to avoid the unseemly topic of power in their own institutions. She writes: “So the problem of power may have answered itself. Power will be spread, densely, in a place called nowhere.” (84)

    This is evasive nonsense and The Other Seriousness is itself pseudo-serious: it proclaims a mood of seriousness and then congratulates itself (and you, the serious reader) for that mood, without ever doing the hard work of critical engagement. The Other Seriousness may thus find a receptive audience among the slackers and hipsters it purports to criticize.
    10 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2015
    one of the best books I've read in a long time! Made a huge impact on me and pushed me to think about my life and the world in a whole new way. Thanks, Christy Wampole.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2015
    This is a book of essays from a professor of languages at Princeton. She apparently has ventured out of her ivory tower to see what goes on in the real world and has come up with astonishing insights. Guess what? Among other things, people are obsessed with technology (“the sanguine forms of distraction brought about by dispersive technologies will undoubtedly begin to bother us like a nervous wasp tapping at the window with its body, trying to be let in. It is too high-strung an experience, too full of sting.”); the US has a racial problem, which doesn’t involve her ( “… my soul is Californian, which is neither Northern or Southern which puts me in a position . . . to think more clearly about the frictions between them”); karaoke is fun (“Karaoke is the great leveler. Having terrible pitch and bad rhythm has rarely kept anyone from grabbing the mic. In fact, sometimes, if you are really terrible, you’ll receive a surplus of applause”), and people like to be clean ( “The slightest hint of BO is enough to make many Americans scrunch their noses in disgust, as if their own pits naturally bore the crisp scent of lilacs in a dewy April field”) . In the last essay, she calls for a state of mind she calls “The Other Serious”, because “We are due for a consequential, polychromatic expansion of forms that will add new hues to our communicative palette.” Come again? The only thing serious about this book is to try and understand why a publisher would accept this pretentious and patronizing gibberish. You know that commercial where single images flash by faster and faster until they form a movie? That’s how the pages of this book went by until they formed a moving image of it on its way to the library book sale.
    6 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2015
    Pages of sheer reading and thought provoking reading and pleasure!!!
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2016
    “The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation” echoes in many respects Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”: the genre, the intended audience, and the concern with the edification of our culture, especially that of the youth, are similar in both works. Such similarity does not have to be a bad thing, but it does raise questions about originality of style and thought. However, in one section of the book the similarity becomes too strong for comfort: Wampole’s program-setting introduction follows all too closely Calvino’s essay on lightness, an inspiration Wampole never acknowledges. Hence the one star.
    3 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2022
    One of my ten favorite books of all time.

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?