Steve Almond

A self-proclaimed candy fanatic and life-long chocoholic trace the history of some of the much-loved candies from his youth, describing the business practices and creative candy-making techniques of some of the small companies. A self-professed candy freak, 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....

Argues that not only is American football hazardous to players' health, and especially to their brains, but also that American support of the sport encourages violence, prejudices, and other ethically troubling behavior.

"It's 1981 in Sacramento, and thirteen-year-old Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for the science fair by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different worlds. Lorena begins to spend time at the Stallworth residence and finds herself seduced, not just by Jenny but her parents: Rosemary, her glamorous, needy mother, and Marcus, a scorpiologist who recognizes Lorena's passion for learning and her confused desires....

Steve Almond, the man whose candy jones fueled the bestseller Candyfreak, returns with a collection of stories that both seals his reputation as a master of the modern form and risks getting him arrested. The cast of characters in The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories includes a wealthy family certain they have been abducted by space aliens, a sexy magazine editor who falls for a world class cad, and a beleaguered dentist who refuses to read his best...

"Declaring that 'our favorite novels aren't just books' but 'manuals for living,' short story writer and essayist Almond ... finds his own such manual in John Williams's Stoner, which he explores in a ... fusion of literary criticism and personal confessional. Almond identifies the acclaimed 1965 novel, about English professor William Stoner's personal and professional struggles, as being told through 'unrelieved narration,' which he posits as a throwback...

"... 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"--Jacket.

Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend's wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.