Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

ARC Arrival: Beg, Borrow, Steal by Michael Greenberg


Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer's Life by Michael Greenberg

Publisher: Other Press

About the book: In Beg, Borrow, Steal Michael Greenberg regales us with his vivid take on the life of a writer of little means trying to practice his craft or simply stay alive. He finds himself doctoring doomed movie scripts; selling cosmetics from an ironing board in front of a women's department store; writing about golf, a game he has never played; and botching his debut as a waiter in a posh restaurant.

Central characters include Michael's father, whose prediction that Michael's "scribbling" wouldn't get him on the subway almost came true; his artistic first wife, whom he met in a Greenwich Village high school; and their son who grew up on the Lower East Side, fluent in the language of the street and in the language of the parlor. Then there are Greenberg's unexpected encounters: a Holocaust survivor who on his deathbed tries to leave Michael his fortune; a repentant communist who confesses his sins; a man who becomes a woman; a Chilean filmmaker in search of his past; and rats who behave like humans and cease to live underground.

Hilarious and bittersweet, Greenberg's stories invite us into a world where the familial, the literary, the tragic, and the mundane not only speak to one another, but deeply enjoy the exchange. (book jacket)

About the author: A native New Yorker, Michael Greenberg is the author of the memoir Hurry Down Sunshine, published in sixteen countries and chosen as one of the best books of 2008 by Time, the San Francisco Chronicle, Amazon.com, and Library Journal. He is a columnist for the Times Literary Journal. He is a columnist for the Times Literary Supplement. His writing has appeared in such varied places as O, The Oprah Magazine and The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York. (book jacket)


Beg, Borrow, Steal
Publisher/Publication Date: Other Press, September 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59051-341-5
232 pages



1 comment:

bermudaonion said...

I can't wait to see what you think of this one.

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