While he is probably best known as a novelist and
short-story writer, Lawrence Block has produced a rich trove of nonfiction over
the course of a sixty-year career. His instructional books for writers are
leaders in the field, and his self-described pedestrian memoir, Step
By Step, has found a loyal audience in the running and racewalking
community.
Over the years, Block has written extensively for magazines
and periodicals. Generally Speaking collects
his philatelic columns from Linn’s Stamp
News, while his extensive observations of crime fiction, along with
personal glimpses of some of its foremost practitioners, have won wide acclaim
in book form as The Crime of Our Lives.
Hunting Buffalo With
Bent Nails is what he’s got left over.
The title piece, originally published in American Heritage, recounts the ongoing
adventure Block and his wife undertook, criss-crossing the United States and parts of Canada in their
quixotic and exotic quest to find every “village, hamlet, and wide place in the
road named Buffalo.” Other travel tales share space with a remembrance of his
mother, odes to New York, a disquisition on pen names and book tours, and,
well, no end of bent nails not worth straightening. Where else will you find “Raymond
Chandler and the Brasher Doubloon,” an assessment of that compelling writer
from a numismatic standpoint? Where else can you read about Block’s collection
of old subway cars?
(I'll be reading and reviewing this one soon, but really, how can you go wrong with anything by Lawrence Block? There'll be a limited edition from Subterranean Press later on, but the e-book and regular print editions are out now.)
2 comments:
I have read lots of LB's fiction but little else by him. However, I am sure his non-fiction is also entertaining. The man can sure put words together. As you say, "how can you go wrong with anything by Lawrence Block?" I am tempted to read this just for the subway cars.
You had me at the title. I've read a lot of Block's non fiction as well as most of his fiction, and I'm sure this will be as good as the rest.
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