Some Books I Have Written / Contributed To:

The Best American Essays 2010 (Mariner Books, September 2010)

An essay I wrote for Slate.com about my brain tumor and ensuing surgery was selected as a “Notable Essay” for this, the 25th anniversary of the esteemed non-fiction collection. The volume was edited by Christopher Hitchens. It was an honor to be included in this edition, especially given the state of Hitchens’ health.

The Reluctant Metrosexual: Dispatches from an Almost Hip Life By Peter Hyman (Villard, August 2004)

Written during the early part of the millennium, my first book was, like the works of Hemingway and Melville, printed on paper (except for the parts available digitally and via audio CD). A collection of humor essays, the book is also  an examination of what it means to be a man in this day and age. I am proud of the work, and several lovely critics were kind enough to compare the writing style to David Sedaris and P.J. O’Rourke, among others.

Bar Mitzvah Disco: The Music May Have Stopped But the Party’s Never Over (Crown, November 2005)

For this hilarious examination of Bar Mitzvah culture of the 70s and 80s, I contributed a humor essay entitled “Confessions of a Waspy Jew.” The book features a trove of photographic footage and essays on this most sacred and embarrassing of Semitic experiences.

Class Dismissed: 75 Amazing, Mind-Expanding College Exploits (Villard, July 2006)

I contributed a humor essay for this anthology of college stories, published by Random House. My essay recalls a date gone awry with an intelligent comparative lit major who, at the end of our evening, proclaimed that I “wasn’t going to talk her into bed.”

Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped and Canceled (Villard, July 2009)

For this collection, based on Jon Friedman’s live show of the same name, I contributed a piece that explored an email rant that complained that I was the “most obnoxious person alive.”  The email’s author had read a New York magazine story I’d written, and it had offended him to the core of his soul. So I put together a PowerPoint presentation that addressed the young man’s concerns.