The KGB Bar nonfiction reader

de Mark Jacobson

The iconic KGB bar, a seemingly tumbledown dive in the Lower East Side, is home to New York City's most diverse and exciting series of nonfiction literary readings. Susan Orlean, Jimmy Breslin, Budd Schulberg, Jack Newfield, Natalie Angier, Joyce Carol Oates, Luc Sante, and many others have all appeared on its hallowed stage. The KGB Bar Non-Fiction Reader reflects the mix-and-match whiplash mood swing atmosphere of their best evenings. Arranged thematically around such topics as Law and Justice, Faraway Places, Sports, Sex and Science, this diverse collection includes Natalie Angier's writing on AIDS, Luc Sante's musings on New York's former bookstores, Steve Earle's eyewitness account of a Texas execution, Lucius Shepard on hopping freight trains and the murderous FTRA, Mick Taussig's report from dysfunctional Colombia, David Remnick on Ali, Marcelle Clements on the trauma of Big City childrearing, and Jon Langford (of the Mekon's) mutant letters to a rock band. Other contributors include John Berendt, Jack Newfield, Katha Pollit, Marshall Berman, Joyce Carol Oates, Armond White, Richard Ben Cramer, and many others.