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Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (Unabridged) | 
 enlarge | Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $20.98
You Save: $18.97 (47%)
Rating:  16 reviews
Media: Audio Download
ASIN: B000R51QWE
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Product Description
To cross a frontier is to be transformed....The frontier is a wake-up call. At the frontier, we can’t avoid the truth; the comforting layers of the quotidian, which insulate us against the world’s harsher realities, are stripped away and, wide-eyed in the harsh fluorescent light of the frontier’s windowless halls, we see things as they are.
In Salman Rushdie’s latest collection of nonfiction, he crosses over the frontier and sees and tells things as they are, inviting readers to “step across this line” with him.
The essays, speeches, and opinion pieces assembled in Step Across This Line, written over the last ten years, cover an astonishing range of subjects. The collection chronicles Rushdie’s intellectual odyssey and is also an especially personal look into the writer’s psyche. With the same fierce intelligence, uncanny social commentary, and very strong opinions that distinguish his fiction, Rushdie writes about his fascination with The Wizard of Oz, his obsession with soccer, and the state of the novel, among many other topics. Most notably, delving into his unique personal experience fighting the Iranian fatwa, he addresses the subject of militant Islam in a series of challenging and deeply felt responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The book ends with the eponymous “Step Across This Line,” a lecture Rushdie delivered at Yale in the spring of 2002, which has never been published before and is sure to prompt discussion.
Rushdie’s first collection of nonfiction, Imaginary Homelands, offered a unique vision of politics, literature, and culture for the 1980s. Step Across This Line does the same and more for the last decade of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 A book to take time over September 14, 2008
This is a book to take time over. The many, many essays each deserve attention: so it is foolish to swish through them. Rushdie gives you so much to think about in each essay, that you need to read it, put the book down and then think a bit. SO it's best read one essay at a time, one day at a time.
That's how they were published initially, so that makes sense for the reader too. Unlike a compilation of short stories, Rushdie talks here directly to the reader about political and social issues that are deeply relevant to the 21st century (with the exception of the essay on Oz, which makes a welcome side track). So you must also approach the book with a political / social mind ~ you need to be prepared to take time to work through his arguments in your head.
If you do, you will be richly rewarded, whether you agree with him or not. And mostly, you will find if you do not, that your tenets have been strongly challenged.
 Good if you want to learn about India, but read some of his other books first June 12, 2008
I've never read Salman Rushdie before, so I was at a bit of a disadvantage
when listening to STEP ACROSS THIS LINE . . . this is a collection
of nonfiction essays on a variety of subjects, including some of
his past books (that I knew only by name), his struggle to film
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, visiting India after being away for
nearly a decade, and my personal favorite, his fascination
with the film THE WIZARD OF OZ.
This latter title was Rushdie's self-acknowledged first literary
influence . . . he shared such tidbits as the following:
* Shirley Temple was seriously considered for the part that Judy
Garland got.
* Buddy Ebsen and Ray Bolger switched roles because Bolger
didn't want to play the Tin Man. Ebsen then had to leave
filming because his costume gave him lead poisoning.
* Frank Morgan played a total of five different roles.
I also liked his account of being photographed by Richard Avedon
and his ultimate goal:
* You hope not to scare people who come across the picture
by chance.
And in talking about his many travels, he noted:
* The most precious book I possess is my passport. . . . and my
first one allowed me to where nobody would want to go.
Other parts of the book were more serious . . . one particular
thought-provoking essay, "Not About Islam?" called the September
11 attack a manifestation of a sickness that is widespread in
the Muslim . . . but also deplored America's response.
I'd recommend STEP ACROSS THIS LINE to anybody wanting
to know more about India . . . however, if you are going to read
it, my suggestion would be to get hold of some of Rushdie's
other books first.
 An enjoyable but uneven collection September 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like most essay collections, this one is hit or miss.
When Rushdie hits, the results are sublime. His essay about being sports fan, namely of Tottenham Hotspurs of the English Premiership, is one of the most compelling and true accounts of what it is to be a sports fan. Rushdie traces the origins of his fandom as a young boy fresh from Bombay to the present day. He accurately captures the ups and downs a fan feels as his team's fortunes rise and fall with the years, the 180 degree turn in feelings about a player from a former rival who suddenly joins his team, and the energy felt on game days. This essay is an excellent primer on sports journalism. I also loved Rushdie's essay on Alice in Wonderland. It was like reading one of Chuck Klosterman's essays, minus the snark.
Of course, there are also essays that come off as self-indulgent. These essays are mostly about Rushdie, the man and the star. Two essays I did not particularly enjoy were the one about the making of a miniseries of Midnight's Children and the one about Rushdie's return to Bombay.
All of the Rushdie traits are present here: humor, intelligence, wit, verbosity, and fresh insights into each topic. I found this collection to be more accessible and easier to read than Rushdie's fiction because he has had to tone down his verbose style to appeal to magazine readers. It is this verbosity that makes it impossible for me to read his fiction.
Wizard Of OZ Influence May 25, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this book new, but cheap, on the street from a book vendor. I had not read anything by Rushdie before and assumed these short stories would be mostly about India. The author opens up this collection of essays and short stories with the influence the film The Wizard Of Oz had upon him. It is quite an intriguing read. There is a lot about India here and the affects that country has on the author. His perceptions and opinions are open for debate which he acknowledges and thats why reading him is invaluable.
wonderful July 6, 2005
for all of those who wish to step across the line of a reader to an experiencer, this book allows such a request. I was priveleged to step into the mind of Salman Rushdie, one of the best writers of our day.
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