More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

(Paperback)

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After toiling in obscurity for years, Charles Bukowski found fame in 1967 with his autobiographical newspaper column, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," and a book of that name in 1969. More Notes of a Dirty Old Man gathers many uncollected gems from the column's 20-year run. These stories and essays haven't been seen in decades, making them a valuable addition to Bukowski's oeuvre. Filled with his usual obsessions sex, booze, gambling More Notes of a Dirty Old Man features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, his tortured relationships with women, and his lurid escapades on the poetry circuit.

Reviews

"In another installment of his essays and ramblings, City Lights press have surely come up with a winner." -- Beat Scene "Proving that misanthropic and humanitarian are two sides of the same tarnished coin and that stagnation and metamorphosis are equally related, this collection arcs subtly from the banal side of addiction to the most extreme forms of love and hate. Bukowski's prose is still relevant, still shocking, still transcendent." -- Publishers Weekly "To anyone familiar with Bukowski's work, they're more of the good stuff -- essays on pure desire that demonstrate his lust for the physical world. And of course, they're shot through with Bukowski's admirable denial of a higher meaning to his work -- to an earnest interviewer, he writes, 'When I die they can take my work and wipe a cat's ass with it. It will be of no earthly use to me.'" -- LA Weekly "In these pieces, written for the alternative press from 1967 through the mid-'80s, is a Bukowski you might not know--the father taking his seven-year-old daughter to the beach in Santa Monica, where he rescues a homeless man who's been beaten up by thugs. Here's the Bukowski lost in the gender wars, confused and trying to keep his own desire (piggy at times, yes) alive. He wasn't looking for beauty, but he found it now and then. And he was happy writing these columns--as much as a grumpy middle-aged drunk can be." -- Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Magazine "He's been gone since 1994, but Charles Bukowski continues to fascinate us. His tales of sex, drugs,and booze, and more sex, drugs, and booze, ad infinitum, resonate a lurid energy that grabs our attention and keeps it." -- SF Weekly

Author Bio

David Stephen Calonne: David Stephen Calonne is the editor of two previous books of uncollected Bukowski published by City Lights, Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook and Absence of the Hero, as well as a volume of interviews, Charles Bukowski: Sunshine Here I Am. He presently teaches at East Michigan University. Charles Bukowski: Author of over 50 books, Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was born in Germany but spent most of his life in Los Angeles, with which he is closely identified. His outrageous tales of sex, booze, and gambling remain wildly popular today.