David Benjamin

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courtesy David Benjamin

Author David Benjamin with a Paris backdrop.

David Benjamin

media release: Award-winning novelist and essayist David Benjamin has lived all over the world. Since launching Last Kid Books in 2019, his 22 titles have won more than forty literary awards, in various genres, from independent press organizations

In Benjamin's Mess, Benjamin messes around with subjects that range from politics and journalism to technology and travel, life in Paris and personal reminiscence. Among the surprises, Benjamin’s eclectic vision shines a revealing glow on … … the ghastly thing on the bedside table … Abraham Lincoln’s discovery of the bikini … The second coming of Jesus in the age of American narcissism … the irresistible fakeness of Las Vegas … the romance of Miss September, 1963 … the attack of the sentient refrigerator … God’s second thoughts about the Creation … the great Morovian housecat holocaust … AND MUCH, MUCH MORE.

Christmas in a Jugular Vein...Author David Benjamin has always been fascinated by Christmas—and by Christmas stories, starting with the Book of Luke. But the holiday tale that tickled Benjamin’s literary fancy was Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” a story which, Benjamin believes, opened the door to countless variations on holiday themes, from Scrooge to Kris Kringle to the Grinch and beyond. “Beyond” is where Benjamin began to venture with his first Christmas story, “The Little Red Dot,” written when he was sixteen and published (in a slightly censored form) in his high-school newspaper’s holiday edition. Since then, said Benjamin, “I’ve tried to compose a new Christmas story every year. During my tenure as editor of the Mansfield (Mass.) News, I contrived to fill our fat holiday issue with Christmas stories written by kids in every grade of the Mansfield schools. The results were a joy to the world. Christmas in a Jugular Vein compiles 38 of Benjamin’s wildly variant and slightly transgressive holiday tales and poems.