|
|
|
|
|
News:
--"Summer in the City." Columns that were part of a group blog on New York Times Select in August, 2006, now available: "Negotiations", "Pursuits" and, "The Stuff of Life". -"Swiss Tryst: One couple takes to Switzerland's magic mountains with Thomas Mann's novel in hand," in Travel and Leisure Magazine, July 2007. -"The Peculiar Pleasure of Earplugs," in Slate.com -"Lost, In Translation," in The New York Times. -Esquire's Napkins -Spring Readings: The University of Arizona Prose Series is pleased to announce a reading with Thomas Beller, Thursday, March 29th, 2007. The University of Virginia, Thursday, April 19th, 2007. -"The End of Innocence: Jackie Earle Haley
Steps Out Of The Shadows," in Film
Comment. - 2007 brings two new essays in two new anthologies: "Odd
Numbers," in
"Only Child," -"The
Kinks at the Garden, 1981," in
"The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable
Concertgoing Experience." -"That Night at the Garden," an essay about a Kinks concert in 1981, shoplifting, police violence, and some other things, in The New York Times City Section, front page, November 26th, 2006. Adopted from a longer essay (see above.) -The Debris of the Visible, a review of "In The Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia," in the Cambodia Daily. -"Birth
of a Salesman," an essay about Egg-Creams, street vending, and high
school set in 1982, in Gourmet magazine's August summer reading supplement.
The author read an excerpt on Public Radio International's "The Splendid
Table," here.
(You need Real Player). For the extremely curious, a podcast interview
about the writing of the essay set at Gem
Spa, while sipping a vanilla Egg-Cream, on Gourmet's website, here. -Robert Birnbaum interviews Thomas Beller here. -A review of Edmund White's "My Lives," in the Voice, here. -"Foreign Exchange," a review of two new story collections in the New York Times, here. -On May 22nd, 2006, PEN America presented the PEN/Robert Bingham Award for best first book of fiction in 2005 to "We're in Trouble," by Chrisopher Coake. The judges this year are Victoria Redel, Heidi Julavits, and Thomas Beller.
|
How
To Be a Man: "Smart,
funny, interesting..." "Beller
can write his butt off." "A
supremely enjoyable collection of essays written in clear, often very
funny prose." "Not
since I first read Joseph Mitchell have I felt so vividly and beautifully
transported to the streets of New York. Thomas Beller is a chronicler
of his own life but also of the life of the city, and there's a quality
of unbridled curiosity to his work which
make his essays shimmer with comedy and insight and exuberance. I absolutely
loved this book." "The
best sections of his book . . . call to mind Raymond Carver in their clarity
of language and subdued emotion. A fine collection of essays that will
resonate with many." "Elegant
descriptions and sophisticated insights that evince the hipness you expect
from a lifelong New Yorker and a sweetness and intimacy you might not." "An
enjoyably mature read." "
Beller's smooth prose and insightful analyses will appeal to fans of good
writing everywhere." "Doesn't
show how to be a man so much as a mensch." "These
quite marvelous and darkly hilarious personal essays derive their power
from a shameless honesty, often about the most shameful moments, which
suddenly reveal a luminous upside in the author's comic retelling. Together
they give us a privileged view of how curiously attenuated and winding,
for many a young American male, is the long march to maturity." "Each
meticulous sentence is a crooked finger that lures the reader deeper into
his darkly funny world."
Editors' Choice: New York Times Book Review, Amazon.com
Table of Contents
Manhattan Ate My Car (read) The Costume Party Mother Goes to Hollywood (read) Chemistry Set The Drummer The Birthday Suit Portrait Of The Bagel As AYoung Man The Problem with T-Shirts A Biker in the City Turtles In New York The Breakup The Tryout Addicted To Love The Last Days of Shakespeare & Company (read) Scenes From a Playground A Bike Messenger in the City Strip Club A Car Is Not A Castle Walking The Dog The Floating Armoire
|
|
|
