This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

A short book based on the commencement speech Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. He speaks to graduating students about what a liberal education is really for. His answer is practical: learning how to think, and choosing what to pay attention to, in the dull routines of adult life such as traffic jams and supermarket queues. He argues that this choice shapes whether we live in selfishness or in awareness and kindness toward others. Plain, direct and gently humorous, it has become one of his most widely read pieces.