Ben East Books

Citizenship | Literature

Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.

PROFILES IN SERVICE

What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.

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Novels

Read, Listen, Watch

  • My Barber, My Chiropractor

    my barber is an artist with blades and attachments that buzz exquisitely around my head. He uses at least three different scissors snipping with casual abandon to create a snowstorm of clippings before clearing my face in a single stroke. He runs his blades across my eyebrows and whistles out my nose—only the Turkish barber…

  • Return of Light

    What lifts my spirits during these cold, dark times is this: tomorrow we will have one second more of daylight than we have today.

  • Book Review: Pictures of Houses with Water Damage

    The 21 stories show in kaleidoscopic form the life, as lives, of an individual confronting the fallout of unrepentant infidelity, unwanted pregnancy, alcohol dependence, failed marriage; We watch lives wrecked by emotional pain, rendered faithfully through the eyes of a cuckold, a cheatwife, a wounded vet boyfriend, a lonely lurking neighbor…

  • Eggnog Around the World

    The first year I cooked eggnog, the result was a combination of lumps and slime. Not even the high-proof white lightening we poured in–the Malawian jungle juice known as Powers No 1–could cure the stuff. We were Peace Corps Volunteers celebrating Christmas in the back of beyond. We had most of the right ingredients, fresh…

  • Clean, not Sanitary

    That left the question of whether it would be worse to wear the pee of some anonymous surfer, or wear his old man’s pee. The kid handled it gracefully. “No dad. Then we wouldn’t be surfing together.”

  • Surf Report

    a low and diminishing will to push out and paddle, there will be no board wax today

  • Holiday Travel Writing Tip

    Most of us in this parallel economy already have some version of BuyBux—cash rewards for paying with credit. MyBux© takes it to a whole new level, consolidating all loyalty programs under one umbrella. And because I’m a novelist, not a productive entrepreneur, the MyBux© loyalty program exists safely within the confines of my unwritten plot.

  • Review: If You Turn to Look Back

    We’re with him now, vibrant present looking back at blurry past, teased as much from this vital trip as from old photos, journals, and letters. He has three more stops to make.

  • Knife fight

    This is a knife. This is the dumbest knife in the kitchen. This knife is so dumb it does not even know it is a knife. I suspect this knife thinks it is a spoon, which is about how sharp this knife is. Sharp as a spoon. I would like to thank the even dumber…

  • mixture is not confusion

    This is Mixture. Mixture is delicious. Mixture is not the same as Confusion, which does not always include peanuts, raisins, cornflakes, and other ingredients prepared as below. To make Mixture, fry three red chilis with two dozen curry leaves until they darken, and when they cool, grind them up! To this powder add sugar (2…

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