New Release

Infinite Jest (30th Anniversary Edition)

By David Foster Wallace

Foreword by Michelle Zauner

On Sale: Feb 3, 2026
Page Count: 1104 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN-13: 9780316602921

$24.99

$32.99 CAD

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Trade Paperback (Special Edition) $24.99 $32.99 CAD
ebook $12.99 $16.99 CAD
Hardcover $40.00 $50.00 CAD

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The 30th anniversary edition of the virtuosic, wickedly comic modern classic about the pursuit of happiness in America, with a new foreword by Michelle Zauner, author of the New York Times bestselling sensation Crying in H Mart.

“To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past fifty years. Catch-22 is one; this is the other.” —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

Set in an addicts’ halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renews the idea of what a novel can do.

“Uproarious … Infinite Jest shows off Wallace as one of the big talents of his generation, a writer … who can seemingly do anything.” ―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“The next step in fiction … Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty … Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think.” —Sven Birkerts, The Atlantic

One of Time magazine’s “100 Best Novels” (1923—2005)

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David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.

“Volleying between arch irony and deep sincerity, Infinite Jest draws from a wealth of literary and pop cultural wellsprings. Homer, The Bible, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Joyce, DeLillo, William James, The Beatles, the Alcoholics’ Anonymous “Big Book” manual, M*A*S*H*, and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies are all, somehow, woven together. It is a kind of mega-text...a big, fat, funny, smart book that demands and rewards sustained attention.”
WIRED
“[A] generous, empathic, environmentalist, anti-capitalist book . . . Its core message to the reader is to try to get out of your head and reject the howling fantods, the solipsistic narrative of yourself you’re imprisoned by, that salvation from pain and self-loathing lies in turning off the screen and getting off the couch and throwing yourself into selfless action.”
GQ
"Uproarious...Infinite Jest shows off Wallace as one of the big talents of his generation, a writer of virtuosic talents who can seemingly do anything."
New York Times
"To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past fifty years. Catch-22 is one; this is the other."
Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly
"A work of genius...grandly ambitious, wickedly comic, a wild, surprisingly readable tour de force."
Seattle Times
"A virtuoso display of styles and themes...There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page."
Time
"The next step in fiction .. .Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty ... Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think."
The Atlantic

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David Foster Wallace

About the Author

David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers’ Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.

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David Foster Wallace

About the Author