Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails

by Lawrence Block

Overview

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, crisscrossing 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?

From Charles Ardai:

Acclaimed worldwide for his extraordinary crime novels, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block is also a beloved author of nonfiction. In this brand new collection - his first in 5 years - Block demonstrates why, illustrating how a master storyteller can hold an audience spellbound on any topic at all.

Whether recounting his exotic travels ("After two weeks of long rides and low rations, we left our wretched Jeeps and mounted Bactrian camels, striking out across the sand in search of a lost city") or expressing his love for his adopted hometown ("I was ten and a half when I fell in love with New York"), whether penning an in-depth appreciation of the work of his friend and fellow Grand Master Donald E. Westlake or an account of his tour of a modeling-clay factory in Indiana -- or his brief stay in a Mexican jail -- Block proves himself once again to be one of our wittiest and most engaging raconteurs. Fans of his seven books on the craft of writing will appreciate his insights on the subject ("Writing is magic, and I say this not boastfully but in wonder. I'm not the magician, waving his wand, pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I'm not sure what I am. The wand, maybe. Or the rabbit, or even the hat."). And what reader could resist a guided tour of Manhattan's eccentricities? ("My favorite intersection is that of Waverly Place and Waverly Place. That street, the most resolutely pious in New York, insists upon crossing itself.")

No one writes like Lawrence Block. If you only know him from his crime stories, you owe it to yourself to discover his many other sides. And if you do already know about his wide-ranging and colorful interests and his unforgettable way of sharing them, well, then -- you know just what a wonderful treat HUNTING BUFFALO WITH BENT NAILS has in store for you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951939250
Publisher:	LB Productions
Publication date:	12/11/2019
Series:	Thorndike Nonfiction
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

The winner of multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon Awards, Lawrence Block (b. 1938) is one of the most acclaimed mystery authors writing today. Best known for his Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series, Block has published more than 100 books and numerous short stories. His novel A Drop of the Hard Stuff was adapted into the Liam Neeson film A Walk Among The Tombstones. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword 9

Abridge This! 17

All My Best Eyes Are Private 23

Alone Too Long 29

Apocalypse in a Small Town 33

Back in the Day with DVR 37

The Ballad of the Pound 43

The Bumpy Road to Inspiration 45

Cheers for the Much-Maligned Motel 49

Collecting Old Subway Cars 55

Donald E. Westlake 69

East Side, West Side 83

Follow the Serendipity Road 89

Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers and Thieves 99

Getting Busted 107

Greenwich Village Through the Years 119

Ham for Breakfast 129

How to Be a Writer Without Writing Anything 139

How We've Changed 157

Hunting Buffalo 159

Introducing Manhattan: a Dark Duet 175

Listowel, a Special Place 187

The Magic of Minneapolis 191

The Mean Streets of Gotham 195

No Slings, No Arrows 199

A Pen Name? Really? After All These Years??? 201

A Rare and Radiant Mother 207

Raymond Chandler and the Brasher Doubloon 235

Travel by Number 243

The Whole World Is Listening 249

Writing My Name 253