The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction by Melissa A. Goldthwaite

The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction Reviews

• 
  Jeanice Davis

  Nice selection of readings.
• 
  Cynthia Austin

  Even though this book is an anthology of many different stories. I always like to leave a review on everything I read so I will go ahead and leave a review of one of many stories in this book.
  
  Once More to the Lake
  
  EB White
  
  I’m very envious of the speaker and his family who got to spend an entire month on a lake in Maine. What a great memory. I would love to do something like that with my own children one day. Despite the ringworm infection and the father’s tip-over in the canoe, the family still had nothing but fond memories of this time.
  
  E.B. White certainly created a nice story that manages to slow down our busy pace of life and reflect on the paths that we are walking. White brilliantly shows that as we age, we assimilate into various roles in life. White begins the story by recalling his own time at the lake; sneaking out of the cottage in the early mornings to go exploring in the canoe. Now, as an adult back at the cottage White is listening to his own son sneak out in the morning and head towards the canoe, he ponders; “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, I was my father.” (pg. 55) Yes, it appears that White has come full circle and now, instead of playing the role of the curious child, he is assigned the role of the observing father.
  
  The tone in this story is one of heavy nostalgia. The speaker’s life is passing by and he is desperately attempting to freeze it by recapturing a special time of his past. He discovers this when a dragonfly arrives and he thinks to himself; “It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always has been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years.” (pg. 55)
  
  Later in the story, the speaker realizes that not everything was as he left it when he discovers that the road, which always had three tracks (to carry the horse carriages) was now narrowed down to only two tracks as the carriages had been replaced by automobiles, the speaker doesn’t care for this change and admits; “For a moment I missed terribly the middle alternative.” (pg. 56)
  
  Again, the speaker notices some changes when he and his son stop at the camp store. “Inside, all was just as it had always been, except there was more Coca-Cola and not so much Moxie and root beer and birch beer and sarsaparilla.” (pg. 58) Time is passing and with it, change is brought. It's a realization that nothing stays as it was and more importantly, it's a realization that everything must come to pass, even his own existence.
  
  I kept coming back to EB Whites name thinking to myself, where have I seen this name before? Then it dawned on me, oh yes, this is the author of Charlottes Webb!!!
• 
  Bethany Marbaker

  Read the majority of this compilation for my Scholars class and I actually really enjoyed it. Many of the essays were relevant to college life and current events and all were well written. If you enjoy nonfiction essays and excerpts, you may actually enjoy reading this "textbook."
• 
  Jack Herbert Christal Gattanella

  This is a book that I teach to my English 101 students. It has a strong selection to get young people interested in reading I think; Stephen King, Langston Hughes, Molly Ivins and Scott McCloud (in comic book form! from Understanding Comics) were some of the notable names, and I also got them interested in stories like "Working at Wendys" and "Extra Lives Why Video Games Matter" by (of all people) the guy that wrote The Disaster Artist. It has some heavy material (an essay about abortion from the pov of a nurse for example) but the wide variety is delightful