“Finally someone makes a significant contribution to literature! Ben Tanzer dishes up a wonderful book that makes his family uncomfortable and surprises his co-workers. The more I read, the more smart I felt.”
"Ben Tanzer: runs This Blog will Change Your Life, which I think is a pretty great name for a blog. He writes a lot of books too, and some of them look like the kind of stuff I like to read, but I haven’t been reading much lately outside of super-old academic medical journals, like War Medicine, which are pretty crazy, really, the way they used to think about treating diseases. Being from Chicago, Tanzer is in a city with a good literary scene, which could mean that he should get more press coverage than he does, but maybe he gets more and you just have to live in Chicago to hear about it. I saw he got interviewed by a magazine or website called The Chicagoist, so there’s something. In short, I would say Tanzer seems like a nice guy and a hard-working writer, and a lot of links come up when you google his name, so I’d say he’s getting his due. If I were him, though, I’d probably feel differently."
The incomparable Mickey Hess announced yesterday at The Rumpus that he would blurb any book within 24 hours. We decided to take take him up on that offer with 99 Problems and got a most excellent blurb from our newest, and most favoritest BFF in the whole world.
“Ben Tanzer fans know that he took to writing novels in the hope that he could outrun death. From a runner’s perspective this may seem extraordinarily strange, but it turns out that Tanzer is staying in shape, reading his thoughts aloud in bookstores that stock copies of other novels he wrote before. If you don't run and never intend to do it, Ben Tanzer’s 99 Problems - Essays about Running and Writing delivers a sophisticated juxtaposition in reverse, a fascinating and exhilarating literary marathon. I have not read any of Tanzer’s book, but this may change soon.”
Bam. Or is that more bam? Because if getting the attention we deserve earlier this week from the Mickey Hess wasn't enough we now get some 24-hour blurb love for You Can Make Him Like You as well. And all that said, its not only officially Mickey Hess week here at TBWCYL, Inc. headquarters, he's by far our newest, yet oldest in a way, and momentarily favoritest, BFF ever. Frankly, it even feels like a bit of a crush.
