“No one writing essays today does so with a greater awareness of the genre’s literary traditions than Patrick Madden. Irresistible, with their meditative musicality and erudite reflections, these essays brilliantly balance a tough-minded pragmatism with a warm embrace of the impossible. Like all the great essayists he pays homage to, Madden seeks to find the miraculous in the mundane, the sublime in the ordinary, the hazards lurking in our momentary contentment. He understands perfectly why Emerson thought the joy of essaying lay in surprise: to surprise their readers, essayists must first surprise themselves.”—Robert Atwan, series editor of The Best American Essays

“Ingenious and witty, audacious and charming, learned, moving, and frank: Patrick Madden’s Sublime Physick places him among the most interesting and essential essayists of our time.”—Mary Cappello, author of Awkward: A Detour and Called Back

“It’s like Montaigne and Sebald got drunk and wrote a book together.”—Brian Doyle, author of Mink River and Leaping

“Patrick Madden combines, to a rare degree, a scholar’s knowledge and an artist’s command of the essay as a literary form. In his hands, the essay becomes a medium for pondering and celebrating our mysterious existence. Readers who wish to reflect more deeply on their own lives will find abundant rewards in these pages.”—Scott Russell Sanders, author of Earth Works: Selected Essays