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''New Jersey's 'Garrison Keillor' or something to that effect...'' |
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RAMBLING ROUNDInside and Outsideat the Same Timeby Anthony Buccino |
Life & Growing Up A famous writing magazine's contest judge said: "Great storytelling! The author sees "the story inside the story" and communicates each one succinctly and effectively. His observations are a gift and so is his way of communicating them. I laughed. I cried. It made me email my 84-year-old mother. I could smell the leather of my father's shoes. THAT'S good writing." "... Advice to author: while you are rightly likened to a number of other writers, be sure to stay Anthony Buccino. There are no duplicates." A famous writing magazine's contest judge said this book's cover should say: ''New Jersey's 'Garrison Keillor' '' ''Buccino takes us where we've all been, in these charming, very readable, accessible essays. It's quite pleasant revisiting the innocence that he creates or remembers in these often wry and witty observations about life. The writing is very good, even, and flows nicely, to make one want to read more.... The author could even be played up a bit on the cover, such as ''New Jersey's 'Garrison Keillor' '' or something to that effect. ... There should be definite regional interest in this book. But Buccino writes well enough to draw a national audience as well ...'' ''... Buccino's style is a cross between Garrison Keillor and Dave Barry, his stories full of heartfelt observations that inevitably have an edge of humor. ..." -- Al Sullivan in The Secaucus Reporter
Quota-ablesCopyright © 2002-2008 by Anthony Buccino. All rights reserved. |
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Second
edition now available ISBN 0-9629824-2-3 Buccino's essays are the best-kept secret record about life and growing up
in ... North Jersey in the 50s, 60s, 70s and later. Anchored in New Jersey, Anthony Buccino pays tribute to the unique Garden State Parkway toll road, but you don't have to be from New Jersey to enjoy this collection. In fact, by now the rest of the country should be ready for Buccino and RAMBLING ROUND Inside and Outside at the Same Time. This collection represents the best of Buccino's humor and homage to living life every day with tongue firmly in cheek while hoping for something funny to happen. On the occasion that he writes seriously, such as the remembrances scattered about, they are bound to give you a nice warm feeling. Buccino's essays are written from the heart and the hearth about family and surroundings. In the 1950s there's Strangers in Old Photos. In the 1960s there were those Boy Scouts days spent camping at Wildcat Lake - It's Catfish Pond Now. In the 1970s revisit those Saturday afternoons football games selling Pretzels! In the 1980s head to Las Vegas for Pushing Ginger. In the late 1990s stop in for lunch in Rambling Round Harborside. In the 2000s ride the Hudson Bergen Light Rail and the last ride on the Newark City Subway in Underground. Not only are these tales are all over the block, but they take you along for the ride, too. Re-live the wonder of the strange midnight calls from Korea, the Happy Dog Dance, a Magical Top Drawer, those Air Raid Drill Memories and living in the town that brought the world Martha Stewart. If you've ever wondered about picking up a bowling ball with a vacuum cleaner, then this collection is right up your alley! Most of the essays in this collection appeared as the author's Rambling Round columns in The Belleville Post, The Nutley Journal, The Independent Press of Bloomfield and the Glen Ridge Paper, published by Worrall. Those columns are reprinted with permission of Worrall Community Newspapers. Three essays appeared in Belleville! and are reprinted without permission ... because the editor never returned the 5th grade photo for the 4th essay that never ran! Why We Do It is reprinted from Between the Lines, the publication of the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. (NUTLEY, N.J.) -- The second edition of RAMBLING ROUND, INSIDE and OUTSIDE
AT THE SAME TIME has been revised, reordered and re-edited from the 2002
version. Now it follows a chronological path through life and growing up in
North Jersey in the last half of the 20th Century. Anthony Buccino has written three books of essays based in and around Nutley and Belleville, N.J. Buccino published two other collections of essays and stories: A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection, in 1991, and Sister Dressed Me Funny, in 1996. A volume of poetry, Days You Knew Me, was published in 1976. A business news editor in Jersey City, N.J., he also blogs about life in northern New Jersey on Uncle Tonoose and about transit in New Jersey. |
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Bookviews by Alan Caruba
My Picks of the Month
"Finally,
let me recommend a book by a friend of mine, Anthony Buccino, who is one of a legion of
wonderfully talented writers whom mainstream publishers tend to ignore. Like myself,
Buccino is born and bred in New Jersey, a place that is often the butt of comedian’s
jokes, but, for those of us who share his heritage and the pleasure of living here, is a
great place filled with lovely suburban towns, long clean beaches, mountain areas for
biking, hiking and camping, world class restaurants, theatres, and other delights. Buccino
writes about growing up in this wonderful place in his third collection of essays, Rambling
Round, which can be ordered from this site via Amazon.Com, or from its
publisher. It’s about having been a Boy Scout, air raid drills, lunches beside the
Hudson River, and those things that make life in Jersey a joy."
Bookviews.com , July 2002