A self-professed candyfreak, Steve Almond set out in search of a much-loved candy from his childhood and found himself on a tour of the small candy companies that are persevering in a marketplace where big corporations dominate. From the Twin Bing to the Idaho Spud, the Valomilk to the Abba-Zaba, and discontinued bars such as the Caravelle, Marathon, and Choco-Lite, Almond uncovers a trove of singular candy bars made by unsung heroes working in old-fashioned factories to produce something they love. And in true candyfreak fashion, Almond lusciously describes the rich tastes that he has loved since childhood and continues to crave today. Steve Almond has written a comic but ultimately bittersweet story of how he grew up on candy-and how, for better and worse, the candy industry has grown up, too. Candyfreak is the delicious story of one man's lifelong obsession with candy and his quest to discover its origins in America.

Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Business & Money

ALMOND, STEVE

Industries

Mariner Books

My Life in Heavy Metal is a short story collection by Steve Almond published in 2002 by Grove Press. The bulk of the stories are about young men, in their twenties exploring their lives.

My Life in Heavy Metal, Stories

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

GROVE PRESS

A debut anthology of short fiction explores the relationships between young men and women in a cynical era in such works as "Valentino," "Geek Player, Love Slayer," and the title story, about an El Paso newspaper clerk assigned to review heavy metal concerts whose attraction to the music fuels a life-altering love affair with a Chicana woman. A first collection. 25,000 first printing.

My Life in Heavy Metal: Stories

United States

Grove Pr

A first collection of twelve powerful stories that takes a clear-eyed view of relationships between young men and women who have come of age in an era without innocence, My Life in Heavy Metal received tremendous acclaim in hardcover. In the past year, Almond has won a Pushcart Prize and been a finalist for the National Magazine Award.

My Life in Heavy Metal

In (Not that You Asked), Steve Almond documents a life spent brawling with the idiot kings of modern culture. He squares off against Sean Hannity on national TV, takes on Oprah Winfrey, nearly gets kidnapped by a reality TV crew, and winds up in Boston, where he quickly enrages the entire population of Red Sox Nation. Amid the carnage, he finds time to celebrate his literary hero, the late Kurt Vonnegut. These are essays the Los Angeles Times has called “rich, fearless [and] cutting.” Praise for (Not that You Asked) “Refreshingly irreverent . . . absurdly funny.” –The Boston Globe “[Almond] scores big in every chapter of this must-have collection. Biting humor, honesty, smarts and heart: Vonnegut himself would have been proud.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Taunting, revealing, irreverent, and earnest.” –The New York Times “Steve Almond has created a distinctive voice and literary persona. Pleasure-obsessed, self-deprecating, horny, hilarious and always dedicated to parsing the messy terrain of the human heart.” –Forward.com

(Not That You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Random House Trade Paperbacks

WINNER, PATERSON FICTION PRIZE 
FINALIST, FOREWORD BOOK OF THE YEAR 
OUTSTANDING COLLECTION, THE STORY PRIZE 
LONGLIST, FRANK O’CONNOR INTERNATIONAL STORY PRIZE 
BRONZE MEDALIST, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER 
 From a “gifted storyteller” who delivers “always enjoyable, often hysterical stories” (New York Times Book Review) comes a meditation on the American Dream and its discontents. In his most ambitious collection yet, Steve Almond offers a comic and forlorn portrait of these United States: our lust for fame, our racial tensions, the toll of perpetual war, and the pursuit of romantic happiness. 
 In the exuberant title story, a hapless would-be actor, desperate to escape the drudgery of his existence, lands the role of a lifetime. In “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched,” reprinted in Best American Short Stories, a psychoanalyst with a secret gambling addiction squares off over the poker table against a damaged ex-patient. In “First Date Back,” a young woman becomes the target of a traumatized soldier’s misguided hopes for love. And “A Dream of Sleep,” the collection’s final story, presents a grief-stricken refugee who tends the graves of a forgotten cemetery, only to have his fragile peace shattered by an unwelcome visitor.
 Each of these thirteen stories is an urgent investigation of America’s soul, its particular suffering, its injustices, its possibilities for redemption. With deft sleight of hand, Almond, “a writer who knows us as well as we know ourselves” (Houston Chronicle), leavens his disappointment and outrage with a persistent hope for the men and women who inhabit his worlds. God Bless America offers us an astonishing vision of our collective fate, rendered in Almond’s signature style of “precise strokes . . . with metaphors so original and spot-on that they read like epiphanies” (San Francisco Chronicle).

God Bless America: Stories

Humor & Satire

Lookout Books

The new Resistance Issue of Pangyrus Literary Magazine features many of the artists who've lit up the stage during Resistance Mic!'s first and second seasons at the OBERON in Harvard Square: Robert Pinsky, Steve Almond, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Kazim Ali, Kim Stafford, Brenda Hillman, Regie Gibson, Anne Champion, Krysten Hill, Jennifer Jean, Tim McCarthy, and many more. Full of hope, outrage, humor and insight, the magazine is the necessary companion to impossible times.

Pangyrus Five: The Resistance Issue

PINSKY, Robert

Essays & Correspondence

Pangyrus

How does Steve Almond get himself into so much trouble? Could it be his incessant moralizing? His generally poor posture? The fact that he was raised by a pack of wolves? Frankly, we haven’t got a clue. What we do know is that Almond has a knack for converting his dustups into essays that are both funny and furious. In (Not that You Asked), he squares off against Sean Hannity on national TV, nearly gets arrested for stealing “Sta-Hard” gel from his local pharmacy, and winds up in Boston, where he quickly enrages the entire population of the Red Sox Nation. Almond is, as they say in Yiddish, a tummler. Almond on personal grooming: “Why, exactly, did I feel it would be ‘sexy’ and ‘hot’ to have my girlfriend wax my chest? I can offer no good answer to this question today. I could offer no good answer at the time.” On sports: “To be a fan is to live in a condition of willed helplessness. We are (for the most part) men who sit around and watch other men run and leap and sweat and grapple each other. It is a deeply homoerotic pattern of conduct, often interracial in nature, and essentially humiliating.” On popular culture: “I have never actually owned a TV, a fact I mention whenever possible, in the hopes that it will make me seem noble and possibly lead to oral sex.” On his literary hero, Kurt Vonnegut: “His books perform the greatest feat of alchemy known to man: the conversion of grief into laughter by means of courageous imagination.” On religion: “Every year, when Chanukah season rolled around, my brothers and I would make the suburban pilgrimage to the home of our grandparents, where we would ring in the holiday with a big, juicy Chanukah ham.” The essays in (Not that You Asked) will make you laugh out loud, or, maybe just as likely, hurl the book across the room. Either way, you’ll find Steve Almond savagely entertaining. Not that you asked. “A pop-culture-saturated intellectual, a kindly grouch, vitriolic Boston Red Sox hater, neurotic new father and Kurt Vonnegut fanatic… [Almond] scores big in every chapter of this must-have collection. Biting humor, honesty, smarts and heart: Vonnegut himself would have been proud.” —— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

(Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions

Random House]

Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions

BAGGOTT,JULIANNA

Blackstone Pub

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