Nonfiction

Review: THE PITTSBURGH ANTHOLOGY Edited by Eric Boyd
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Review: THE PITTSBURGH ANTHOLOGY Edited by Eric Boyd

The Pittsburgh Anthology Ed. Eric Boyd Belt Books, September 2015 236 pp; $20 Buy paperback “Pittsburgh has always been a scrappy city, characterized by unflapping tenacity, even as outsourcing and the ills of globalization threatened its survival,” writes Kevin Tasker in “Rebirth of the Hollywood Lanes,” one of the final essays in The Pittsburgh Anthology….

Review: THE CITY AT THREE PM: WRITING, READING, AND TRAVELING by Peter LaSalle
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Review: THE CITY AT THREE PM: WRITING, READING, AND TRAVELING by Peter LaSalle

The City at Three PM: Writing, Reading, and Traveling Peter LaSalle Dzanc Books, December 15 2015 280 pp; $15.95 Buy paperback We read travel writers for a variety of reasons, but often it is for the vicarious thrill of the journey, somewhat akin to schadenfreude in that we can happily wince at a traveler’s discomforts…

Review: WHAT’S THE STORY by Sydney Lea
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Review: WHAT’S THE STORY by Sydney Lea

WHAT’S THE STORY Sydney Lea, Essays Green Writer’s Press, Nov 2015 224 pp; $19.95 Buy: paperback Now in his 70s, Vermont Poet Laureate and founder of New England Review Sydney Lea presents in this collection nearly seventy lyrical meditations in prose on what he calls the biggest surprise of his life, “turning into an elderly man.”…

Review: Circus Maximus by Andrew Zimbalist
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Review: Circus Maximus by Andrew Zimbalist

Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup Andrew Zimbalist Brookings Institution Press, 2015 175 pages Buy: book | ebook In a way, everything about Andrew Zimbalist’s Circus Maximus is great. The book is thoroughly researched, thoroughly argued—hard to find a hole in its logic. And yet: how devastating. Zimbalist draws from…

Allen Ginsberg
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Reading as Intoxicant, Part I: Neurochemical Qualities of the Modern Manic Page Peeler

Richard Wright once wrote that reading is like a drug. Countless other authors have written some variation of that same assertion. If you’ve ever found yourself crushed in a corner weeping like a crazy person because the end of your latest literary fixation was fast coming to a close, or buying more books than you…

Rehabbing the Southern Way of Life: On “The World’s Largest Man”
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Rehabbing the Southern Way of Life: On “The World’s Largest Man”

At a cultural moment when it seems the Southern Way of Life needs some image rehab, the timing of Harrison Scott Key’s memoir of his Mississippi childhood is impeccable. The World’s Largest Man takes on the Southern masculine ideal, violence, race and more, all under the guise of amiable family anecdote. Comprised of humorous, highly…

Review: WHAT COMES NEXT AND HOW TO LIKE IT by Abigail Thomas
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Review: WHAT COMES NEXT AND HOW TO LIKE IT by Abigail Thomas

What Comes Next and How to Like It Abigail Thomas Scribner, March 2015 240 pages Buy: book | ebook I was first introduced to Abigail Thomas’s work in grad school when I read Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life. Initially, I was startled by its economy of words, wondering how all those little pieces…