Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
Ben East’s nonfiction debut recounts how JFK’s bold experiment shaped diplomatic careers and influenced modern American diplomacy.
Read, Listen, Watch
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Two Pumps for the Body Man Set in Saudi Arabia, Two Pumps does for American diplomacy and the War on Terror what Catch-22 did for military logic during the Second World War: The enemy can’t kill us if our institutions kill us first. Jeff Mutton walks the diplomatic beat protecting American officials in Saudi Arabia.…
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Back in January my son asked me to write him a story for his birthday. Three months later I’ve put the finishing touches on a 32k-word novel, my first in the lit-for-kids line. Vikram turns 8 next week. Among the themes (friendship, family, dreams) is baseball. With MLB opening day upon us, I thought I’d share a chapter.…
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…and sometimes writing’s purely physical, like when you’re in the middle of editing copy in Word from a comfortable, seated position and you find yourself needing to hand-write a note, but that’s got to be done in the specific place where you organize all the notes pertaining to the next draft you have planned, but you realize you’ve left…
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The Second World War II had Catch 22. The Global War on Terror will have:
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Yesterday In Harper’s Ferry Seated between my boys I ate an ice cream cone In the sun. In public. “This is good, dad.” “This is good.” #Americanah
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Dear fellow writers and artists, The Washington Post on Friday helped explain your anti-social tendencies. Revelation: you’re not misanthropic; you’re smart. What you’re working on has been equated to finding the cure for cancer. Research published last month in the British Journal of Psychology by two evolutionary psychologists from the London School of Economics and Singapore…
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Mothers, fathers, Diamond’s calling: Little League begins. Sons and daughters, Grab your bats. Days are growing long. Pitcher, catcher, Batter, Ump: Eyes quick on the ball. Windup, pitch, Swing and hit, Field and throw and tag. Line to Center. Ground to short. Hit and run and slide. Bases loaded, Batter up, Knock it past the…
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The March issue of the Foreign Service Journal covers the annual book fair and includes a call for FS-affiliated writers to submit news of forthcoming and recently published books for the November round up. Authors are also invited to submit work for review on this blog: I recently reviewed retired FSO James F. O’Callaghan’s No Circuses. See below. From the FSJ…
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Peace Corps Week celebrates President Kennedy’s establishment of the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. This year is the 55th anniversary of the Peace Corps, and service never ends. Peace Corps Volunteers go on to become Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), because there is always the third goal: bringing the experience home to promote a better understanding…
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Having re-cast the 2016 Republican presidential contenders as their literary counterparts, I’m taking a look at the Democrats. Hillary Let’s keep gender out of this. Gender—like all demographic attributes—neither qualifies nor disqualifies a candidate for my vote. It would be just as sexist to vote for HRC because she is a woman as it would be not to vote for her because is…
Ben East Books 