Do not believe the blurbs - Rated 
I keep looking at the cover blurbs, looking at the book, looking back...
Pages 1 to 145 (out of 285, not including the afterword) is a summary of anthropological studies of gift giving in different cultures, and of examples of folk tales which have morals about reciprocity (for example the elves and the shoemaker) and sharing. Message: gift exchange has always been massively important in human culture. So far, almost nothing about the creative spirit and transforming the world.
Pages 146 to 162: 'Commerce and the creative spirit'. OK so now we're getting into it, interesting quotes from Pinter, Roethke, Snyder, Ginsberg. This 16 pages seems to be the start of the main theme, but then...
Pages 163 to 218: A biographical sketch of Whitman, focusing 'on how his nursing during the war opened him to love'.
Pqges 218 to 275: An exposition of Ezra Pound's dingbat economic theories and advocacy of facism and anti-semitism.
The relation of these chapters to the rest of the book seems to rest on the fact that both poets were not mainly attentive to the trappings of worldly success (but neither is Warren Buffet!). There is a strong feeling that he has lectured extensively on both these guys and has basically crowbarred them in. But they make up more than a third of the book.
Last ten pages: kind of a restatement of the introduction, but also a moderation: "I still believe the believe a gift can be destroyed by the marketplace. But I no longer feel the poles of this dichotomy to be so strongly opposed". Now he tells us!
The afterword, written in 2006, is a bunch of disparate stuff: open source, open access journals, Lessig-like copyright issues. all showing gift exchange being alive and well (again, nothing to do with artistic gifts - he bounces between the 2 ideas when convenient).
So why are Geoff Dyer and David Foster Wallace (neither of whom are the types of writer I would associate with this kind of poorly constructed mush) willing to act as salesmen for it? How can canongate say that reading about Pound and facism will 'transform the way you look at the world'?
I keep looking at the cover blurbs, looking at the book, looking back...
Early Xmas present to myself - Rated 
I bought this for my art school student brother, but ended up keeping it for myself...It reminds us of the place of non-commercial exchange in our culture. It was originally written in the 70s and it shows: today even art is all about money, which robs it of what makes it precious in the first place. This book is unique and therefore difficult to describe - read for yourselves!
A book that will change the way you see the world - Rated
I picked up a copy of The Gift in a bookstore and was initially sceptical because it had these raving endorsements from what seemed like TOO many authors who I think are brilliant. Can a book be this good? Margaret Atwood, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Geoff Dyer all certainly seem to think so. And you know what? They were right.
Lewis Hyde is not only a beautiful prose stylist but he is a thinker to match, for The Gift offers a challenging and provocative argument about how we value things. He uses wide-ranging examples from across cultures and epochs and leaves you at the end valuing all the more those things that can't have a monetary worth attached to them.
This is a massive book teeming with wisdom and insights into what matters. It's essential reading. And a beautiful book to give people for many different reasons.
Makes me want to be a bohemian. - Rated
Makes me feel like there really is some point to it all. Life enhancing stuff.
One of the best books - ever! - Rated
Originally published in 1979 as The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property and now published in England for the 1st time is a book which in my view is one of the best books - ever! Why, because it speaks directly to you about what makes us tick as human beings, what we do for love and what for money. By studying gift economies in the Pacific which show that gifts link people and commerce separates them and then taking an amazing jump through numerous cultural, spiritual and commercial universes helps give you a coherent view of the world. It then awakens interest in every area of art and human endeavour with wonderful readable prose. This is truly the book to have on your desert island and to give as a gift to everyone you know. Along with Epictetus's "the Art of Living" its all I need.
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