David Bouchier brings humor and insight to the quirks and puzzles of everyday life, from buying vitamin pills to reading poetry on the subways. These entertaining commentaries were first broadcast on public radio stations in Long Island and Connecticut, where Bouchier's quirky and clever humor has made him the most popular public radio personality in the region.Every week for the past twelve years Bouchier has plucked a topic from the chaos of ordinary life and subjected it to his ...

In Loose Connections: Still More Irregular Essays from Public Radio, David Bouchier brings humor and insight to the quirks and perplexities of everyday life. These entertaining commentaries were first broadcast on stations of the WSHU Public Radio Network in Long Island and Connecticut, where Bouchier's ironic wit has made him one of the best-known public radio personalities in the region. He is also the host of the podcast "A Few Well Chosen Words."Loose Connections

Award-winning humorist and radio personality David Bouchier has been called "The H.L. Mencken of the subdivisions." He applies his satirical wit, wisdom, and a touch of philosophy to the everyday dramas of suburban life. In this second collection of essays, originally broadcast on National Public Radio stations WSHU and WSUF in Long Island and Connecticut, he explores and explains such quintessentially suburban themes as: the the trauma of an empty driveway; romance in the catering hall; a...

Writer at Work is the book about writing that somebody had to write. It's a report from the front lines by a working writer with a lifetime of experience in everything from literary fiction to radio and newspaper reporting. Writer at Work is full of provocative opinions and unexpected diversions. It combines practical advice, based on the author's long experience as a writing instructor, with lively and often funny reflections on the writing life.Writer at Wor...

Transatlantic humorist David Bouchier brings wit, wisdom and a touch of philosophy to the everyday dramas of American suburban life. This book brings together more than a hundred essays, originally broadcast on National Public Radio, or published in his Out of Order column in the Sunday New York Times.When work and marriage brought David Bouchier to Long Island in 1986 the endless suburbs seemed mysterious and exotic to him. He was inspired to begin writing essays and news...

Passionate, independent-minded nonfiction from the international bestselling author of ‘The Corrections’.Jonathan Franzen's ‘Freedom’ was the literary sensation of 2010, whilst ‘The Corrections’ was the best-loved and most written-about novel the previous decade. ‘How to be Alone’, is a collection of the personal essays and painstaking, often humorous reportage that have earned Franzen a wide and loyal readership, including what has come to be known as 'The Harper's Essay', Franzen...

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins' legendary memoir—wild tales of his life and times, both at home and around the globe.Tom Robbins' warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, and Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates—provide an entryway into the frontier of his singular imagination. Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent...

In this deeply smart and sneakily poignant collection of essays, the bestselling author of Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable makes an inspired case for always assuming the worst—because then you’ll never be disappointed.Whether he’s taking on pop culture phenomena with Oscar Wilde-worthy wit or dealing with personal tragedy, Rakoff’s sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the untapped power of negativity.

Reginald Edward Morse is a man in need of an outlet. And he finds it in a very twenty-first century place: the internet. Specifically, RateYourLodging.com, where Americans go to find out the truth about hotels, motels and, horrors, bed and breakfasts. But the real joy of those sites is not so much the advice they offer, but the people who offer it. Reginald Edward Morse is one of those people.At first Morse seems exactly what you'd suspect a reviewer to be, though under th...

Like many young people, Heidi Julavits kept a diary. Decades later she found her old diaries in a storage bin, and hoped to discover the early evidence of the person (and writer) she’d since become. Instead, “The actual diaries revealed me to possess the mind of a paranoid tax auditor.”Thus was born a desire to try again, to chronicle her daily life as a fortysomething woman, wife, mother, and writer. The dazzling result is The Folded Clock, in which the diary form becomes ...

“[Lynch] brings the lessons of death to life, and turns life and death into art.” —Time Out New YorkHere is the voice of both witness and functionary. Lynch stands between “the living and the living who have died” with outrage and amazement, awe and calm, straining for the brief glimpse we all get of what mortality means to a vital species.

Many of us have tried to call a halt to our spending at one time or another. But what if we decided not to buy anything for a whole year? Obviously, we would need necessities like food and soap, but how would be manage without new clothes, treats, entertainment?Funny, smart and self-deprecating, Not Buying It is a close look at our society's obsession with shopping and the cold turkey confession of a woman we can all identify with -- someone who can't live without French r...