Böcker av John Manderino

On a job application, there's that tricky question: reason for leaving? John Manderino's answers are collected here in this hilarious novel tracing the history of a guy trying to grow up job by job. Delivery boy, altar boy, busboy, teacher, cotton picker, umpire, Zen monk--Manderino's protagonist tries on one hat after another.

It's Saturday, october 27, 1962, the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two children, Ralph and his little sister Lou, are searching for empty bottles in a vacant lot when they discover a rock which--to them, at least--looks quite a lot like Jesus. Ralph immediately declares it a Possible Holy Object. And, since his fondest wish is to be a "e;boy-in-a-story,"e; he earnestly places himself and Lou--now his "e;sidekick"e;--in a tale featuring the "e;sacred rock"e; as the key to nothing less than saving the world from nuclear annihilation. But there's another boy, Toby--older, shrewder, and quite a bit larger--who has very different plans for the rock, intending to use it as a lucrative sideshow exhibit, complete with fliers: Is it Jesus? Or just a rock? You decide! Hovering over the children and their small-scale war is the general anxiety and dread attending the most perilous moment in our history. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Manderino's The H-bomb and the Jesus Rock provides a unique, children's-eye view of that near-Armageddon.

In this comic, witty memoir, John Manderino shows us how the pivotal points of his life have been enmeshed with movie moments. "e;Crying at Movies"e; presents thirty-eight succinct chapters, each bearing the title of a film. It is at once a love-letter to an art form and a humorous appreciation of the distinctions between movie scenes and life's realities.

At forty, Hank has decided he's through with baseball--a routine pop-up fell on his head and he got the message. Trouble is, baseball is the one thing that's given any meaning to his life. This is the painfully funny story of a man who decides to get a life, but isn't sure how. It's about fathers and sons, heroes and whiners, the wheel of fortune (and Vanna White), baseball and the decline of Western civilization--and why Nellie Fox always spat in his glove.