We’re no experts — everything we know about cars we learned from Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Mad Max: Fury Road — but we keep hearing that the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (July 8th – 17th) features “the only on-street racing anywhere outside of Monaco” and is not to be missed!
Below are some of Littsburgh’s reading recommendations for the Grand Prix, inspired by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 90,000-book reading challenge. If you’re in the market for more recommendations, check out some amazing excerpts from local and visiting authors right here on Littsburgh!
Katie recommends The Spoils of Time series by Penny Vincenzi
An epic, delicious, irresistible sweeping saga of power, family, politics, and passion starting in WWI England and spanning to the mid-20th century, this series follows the Lytton family running a publishing house in London in the midst of key moments of history. Read all three. And… I think they drive fun cars from time to time, too.
From the publisher:
“Set against the tumultuous backdrop of London and New York in the First World War, No Angel is, as British Good Housekeeping wrote, ‘an absorbing page-turner, packed with believable characters and satisfyingly extreme villains, eccentrics, and manipulators.’ Readers of Maeve Binchy, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Anita Shreve will fall in love with this epic, un-put-downable novel…”
Rachel recommends Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car by Ian Fleming
If you’re like me, you probably know all the words to the musical — but it was a book first! It might seem like the obvious choice, but when was the last time you read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a car on a mission to stop a criminal gang in its tracks”… and it’s by Ian Fleming of 007 fame. What’s not to love?
From the publisher:
“‘Crackpot’ is what everybody calls the Pott family. So when they go to buy a new car and come back with a wreck, nobody is surprised. Except for the Potts themselves. First, the car has a name. And she tells them what it is. Then they find out that she can fly. And swim… Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a car on a mission to stop a criminal gang in its tracks — and she is taking the Potts with her! Jump into the world’s most loved magical car for her first adventure.”
Nick recommends Road Scholar by Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is one of my favorites — has been since he came to talk about poetry to my fourth grade class! If you listened to NPR in the 90s, watch some of the clip below… I guarantee you’ll recognize his voice.
From Publisher’s Weekly:
“Approached by a TV producer to make a documentary about a drive across the U.S., Codrescu, Romanian-born poet and commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, declined. He didn’t drive. But after pondering the tradition of American rediscovery by such notables as Walt Whitman, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac, he took driving lessons and possession of a vintage (1968) red Cadillac convertible and set out to explore an America not on most maps.
For him that country stretches from the Nuyorican Cafe on Manhattan’s lower East Side, along the ‘psychic highway’ through the land of the Shakers, Mormons and Oneidists, to the Polish enclave of Hamtramck in the heart of Detroit, to the ‘holy dirt’ of Chimayo, N.M. not far from the community of Sikhs near Albuquerque, through the drive-in wedding chapels of Las Vegas to the San Francisco of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Vietnamese immigrants.”
It’s also a documentary!
Road Scholar from Vladimir Paperny on Vimeo.
Image courtesy of ccbarr via Creative Commons
Brockport, PA — The WCoNA Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia® (here and after WCoNA) is pleased to announce its longlist Read more
“A relevant, harrowing mystery with page-turning suspense.” ―Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Just the Nicest Couple From Read more
Littsburgh’s co-founder Rachel Ekstrom Courage (also a literary agent and author) joined Heather Abraham on Talk Pittsburgh again this week Read more
Littsburgh’s co-founder Rachel Ekstrom Courage (also a literary agent and author) joined Heather Abraham on Talk Pittsburgh again this week Read more
“Sidle Creek is one of the best story collections I’ve read in a long time.” –Ron Rash, New York Times Read more
Littsburgh’s co-founder Rachel Ekstrom Courage (also a literary agent and author) joined Heather Abraham on Talk Pittsburgh again this week Read more
From the Publisher: "For more than fifty years, we have been waging, but not winning, the war on cancer. We’re Read more
"Myriad has been in so many time streams she’s lost count – hiding from her feelings about her brother’s death Read more
“Beautiful, vivid writing and a power-packed plot . . . I truly loved it.” –Lauren Tarshis, bestselling author of the Read more
Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off in this fantastic space opera You Sexy Thing from former SFWA President, Cat Read more
About the Author: "Ken Gormley is president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. A lawyer, constitutional scholar, and author, Gormley's work Read more
"Living in Pittsburgh, and truth be told at loose ends since the blue jays, how could we expect to hold Read more
From the Publisher: The land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans Read more
From the Publisher: The confluence in the title of this debut collection from Samantha DeFlitch describes the meeting of three Read more
"From her bench in the park near her house, the woman who Rebecca so beautifully and poignantly portrays quietly carries Read more
"Slam came to Pittsburgh in the early ’90s, and it still has a home here. But two long-time practitioners also Read more
Selected by Cheryl Strayed for the Kore Press Institute Memoir Award From the Publisher: "Certain and Impossible Events orbits the Read more
"Sewickley, the Shawnee word for sweet water, derived from the tribe’s belief that the borough’s shores were a little sweeter Read more
"After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with an English degree, Sharon Flake could have concentrated on fiction for adults, Read more
From the publisher: "Soon after her husband's tragic death, Robin Besher makes a startling discovery: He had recklessly blown through Read more
