Every Wrong Direction recreates and dissects the bitter education of Dan Burt, an American emigré who never found a home in America. It begins in the row homes of Jewish immigrants and working-class Italians on the mean streets of 1950s South Philadelphia. Every Wrong Direction follows the author from the rough, working-class childhood that groomed him to be a butcher or charter boat captain, through America, Britain, and Saudi Arabia as student, lawyer, spy, culture warrior, and expatriat...

The poet - a man of the world in the widest sense - reflects and in reflection relives the intense experiences that shaped him and that have shaped our modern world. Salvage at Twilight ends with 'Deposition', a harrowing elegy in five parts: the beloved endures 'her Nile of pain'; the lover attends as she is treated, the last scene postponed until the two selves are quite differently refined. His editor has written, 'Dan Burt's poetry, like his prose, explores themes unusual in contempora...

We Look Like This anatomizes how history, violence, power, lust and mortality at work on us. Burt's formal, muscular language evokes war, want, cruelty and hope, and a childhood among tough Jews' in Philadelphia, dominated by his father Joe, son of Ukrainian immigrants, butcher, boxer and, last, coastal fisherman.

A remarkable memoir of resisting a legacy of organized crime and creating a new life: "A fascinating read" ( Commonweal).Prostitution, gambling, fencing, contract murder, loan-sharking, political corruption and crimes of every sort were the daily trade in Philadelphia's Tenderloin, the oldest part of town. The Kevitch family ruled this stew for half a century, from Prohibition to the rise of Atlantic City. My mother was a Kevitch.

An essential collection of career-spanning writings by the political satirist and #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Parliament of Whores.From his early pieces for the National Lampoon, through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone's International Affairs editor in the 1980s and 1990s, and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis, P. J. O'Rourke has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane...

An extraordinary wide-ranging collection of essays with “distinctive wordplay and quirky opinions…Christopher Buckley is good company whether you’re looking for two quick pages and a smile, or want to linger” (The New York Times Book Review).Christopher Buckley, like his terrific volume But Enough About You, contains multitudes. Tackling subjects ranging from “How to Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski” to “A Short History of the Bug Zapper,” and “The...

The Washington Post hailed Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast as "a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing," and People lauded Kayak Morning as "intimate, expansive and profoundly moving." Classic tales of love and grief, the New York Times bestselling memoirs are also original literary works that carve out new territory at the intersection of poetry and prose. Now comes The Boy Detective, a story of the author's childhood in New York City, suffused with the same mixture of acute observ...

From the bestselling, critically acclaimed author of Man in the Woods and Endless Love, a stunning, stinging portrait of class and creativity-and the double-edged sword of successThirteen parties over the course of two decades-an opium infused barbeque, a reception for a doomed presidential candidate, a fund-raiser for a blind child who speaks in tongues, a visit to one of New York’s fabled sex clubs-brilliantly reveal the lives of two couples, on...

With these interwoven autobiographical essays, Geoffrey Wolff, author of the acclaimed The Duke of Deception, recounts the moral (and immoral) education of a writer, friend, husband, and father, as he offers his spirited, elegant, and deeply felt observations on an extraordinary life: from wildly dysfunctional childhood Christmases to a concupiscent career teaching literature in Istanbul; from a victory over the chaos of drink to a life-affirming surrender to the majesty of the Matterhorn;...

Lewis Burke Frumkes, one of America's very best satirists, sharpens his pen on the fads, fears, and fashions of the urban landscape. Here are 49 hilarious ways to cope with them. Explore the benefits of aerobic typing. Wile a friend with "Exotic Gifts from Harry and Larry" including "Road Imperial ValiumAmerica's Favorite TranquilizerOnly Better." Take charge of your next meeting with Frumkes's "New Rules of Order," which include Blurting, Interrupting, and Bullwhipping. Jump in the saddle...

Worlds collide when a naïve young heiress takes a tumble for a bootlegger with a murderous temper and his business partner falls in love with Montreal, the way Americans are prone to do. One world war has ended and a second is in the wings. In the space between, the neon-powered city on the St. Lawrence is notorious for its lavish nightlife, obsessive gambling and evident corruption. Controlling the action from behind the scenes is a large and mysterious figure called the Carpenter. He is ...

Following in the footsteps of countless emigrants, Jonathan Raban takes ship for New York from Liverpool, to explore how succeeding generations of newcomers have fared in America. He finds a country of massive contrasts, between the 'Street People' and the 'Air People' in New York, between small town and big city, between thrusting immigrants and down-at-heel Native Americans.Having outgrown his minute, rented, New York apartment, he heads for Guntersville, Alabama, where he settle...