SOURCE: "Change the Channel," in Newsweek, Vol. CXXVII, No. 9, February 26, 1996, p. 68.

Giles is an American novelist and critic. In the following mixed review, he characterizes Remote as a "weird collection of essays and remembrances," and "a book for a society sick of books."

Literary fiction tends to be a sleepy dominion—so few people read it that publishers seem to consider it pro bono work—and every so often a writer bolts for where the action is. Here goes David Shields. The author, 39, previously made a tiny name for himself as a writer of artful coming-of-age fiction. Now he has delivered Remote, a determinedly weird collection of essays and remembrances, a book for a society sick of books.

Remote channel-surfs through 52 quickie chapters—on Oprah, on Rousseau, on bumper stickers, on movie stars, on childhood, on the significance of tilting one's head in a photograph—that are meant...