Bill Kauffman

Fear and Trembling in Las Vegas

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Will Hoyt, the Berkeley carpenter now working as an Appalachian boniface, calls this book ‘a time-lapse photograph of civilizational collapse,’ but his photograph dazzles with rays of light, fulgent gifts. Whether writing about John Muir, Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, Bob Dylan, or the spectacularly fertile decade of Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville, Fear and Trembling in Las Vegas brims with fresh and unexpected insights on every page. Hell, now I even want to visit Las Vegas—because the smart money is on Will Hoyt.”

Glimpses of Another Land

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Whether he writes about the Amish, popular Christian music, or the Pittsburgh Steelers, Eric Miller's prose sings with grace, passion, wit, Pennsylvania patriotism, and, suffusing it all, a sense of hope. His is an America of neighbors, faith, and peace, not vacuous pop culture and political cant. In the tradition of Christopher Lasch and Wendell Berry, Eric Miller illumines for us a way back home.”

The Culinary Plagiarist

Arts & Literature

“The funniest writer in America is a broken-down hoops star of irrepressible high spirits, an astringent Christian wit, a cussedly independent rhapsodist of olive burgers and local beers, and a whipper of creams and puller of pork and minter of apothegms. Jason Peters is the (gaunt) Chesterton of Dumb Ass Acres, Michigan. Read him while it’s still legal to do so.”

The Seven Ranges

“A Berkeley carpenter turned Rust Belt innkeeper—think Beat Catholic with a practical bent—sets out on a towboat up the Ohio River and delivers a beautifully written book full of startling linkages as he interweaves stripmining, Dean Martin, the Civil War, corporate personhood, Jefferson’s ward republics, the Allegheny County Courthouse, and more. Wise Will Hoyt knows that even in a ravaged land, hope abides.”