Category Archives: Books

A WTF! Q&A with Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Neal

Well this was fun… chatting with the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! folks for their cool WTF! blog. (No, it actually stands for Weird True Facts.) Re-purposing the interview. Thanks for the great questions Suzanne!  Q: What sparked your interest … Continue reading →

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Getting schooled on suds by Garrett Oliver

Posted on 12/03/2011 by Neal

My Amazon colleagues and I interview the author of The Oxford Companion to Beer.

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More interviews at Amazon.com’s Omnivoracious

Posted on 09/17/2011 by Neal

Three more of my author interviews at Amazon’s books blog: -Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding -Laura Lippman, whose later novel is The Most Dangerous Thing -George Pelecanos, whose latest is The Cut And here’s a video interview … Continue reading →

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Recent author interviews at Amazon.com

Posted on 09/05/2011 by Neal

Links to a few of the posts I’ve recently begun contributing to Amazon.com’s books blog, Omnivoracious: Q&A with Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, authors of That Used to be Us. video interview/reading with Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians and … Continue reading →

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Sk8 the St8s skateboarding road trip comes to an end

Posted on 08/12/2011 by Neal

[Note: this is the final post from my Sk8 the St8s blog, co-sponsored by CBS, chronicling my fathers-and-sons, cross-country skateboarding summer road trip, which I hope will form the basis of a book about the history and culture of skateboarding.] … Continue reading →

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“A Day at the Office”: authors Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan & Peter Mountford

Posted on 06/14/2011 by Neal

Cheryl Tan and I worked together nearly fifteen years ago at the Baltimore Sun. She’s since worked as a fashion writer at the Wall Street Journal and recently published her first book, A Tiger in the Kitchen. During her recent … Continue reading →

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‘Light This Candle’ autographed book giveaway

Posted on 05/05/2011 by Neal

Today (as I’ve been reminding anyone on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or Tumblr who’ll listen) is the 50th anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became America’s first spaceman. In commemoration of that event – which provided the title of my 2004 … Continue reading →

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50th anniversary of Alan Shepard, and America, in space

Posted on 05/01/2011 by Neal

In advance of the anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became America’s first spaceman (5/5/61), I’m posting Light This Candle excerpts this week, along with photos and links related to Shepard and the book. Here’s a sample from Chapter 9, … Continue reading →

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Review: A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism

Posted on 04/05/2011 by Neal

A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism by Peter Mountford My rating: 4 of 5 stars In one chapter of my forthcoming biography of Robert Ripley, I recount the eccentric, world-traveling “Believe It or Not” cartoonist’s months-long journey through South … Continue reading →

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My interview with author Karen Abbott

Posted on 03/21/2011 by Neal

I’d briefly met Karen a few years ago in Asheville, NC, during her tour for her first book, Sin in the Second City. She visited Seattle last month to talk at Elliott Bay Book Co. about her new book, American Rose, … Continue reading →

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