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Inappropriate
Press.
"Daniel
Nester is the kind of writer who looks at his book as an opportunity
to be honest with you, and hopefully make you laugh. Which I
did."—Emily Nonko, from her interview on Bomb
magazine's website
"In How to Be Inappropriate, Daniel Nester collects many
of his clever essays in one of the year's funniest books.
If you have been reading Nester's pieces at The Daily Beast,
you know how funny he can be, especially when casting his discerning eye
towards pop culture."—from Largehearted Boy's
intro to my Book
Notes
An interview with Rigoberto Gonzalez at Critical
Mass, the National Book Critics Circle blog
"Whoopee! Author Daniel Nester is most inappropriate"—title
of Jeff Baker's piece, with interivew, in The
Oregonian
A
self-interview, along with an excerpt and other goodies, over at The
Nervous Breakdown
Check out the Daniel Nester guest blog posts at
the Powell's Books site
"Nester's essays are hilarious in their approach
to as specific a theme as inappropriateness, and they come highly
recommended."—Bookslut's
John Zuarino's intro to Indie
Heartthrob interview
Library Review: Former
McSweeney's editor Nester (English, Coll. of Saint Rose), whose
writing has appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction, The
Best American Poetry, and Poets & Writers, presents
his debut collection of humorous nonfiction, amassing 41 years' worth
of experience in nonconformity. His stories are, as the title suggests,
inappropriate, and they often engender squeamishness, discomfort, and
laughter. But they are fresh and, at times, touching, qualities that make
this an enjoyable read. Subjects include teaching curse words to Chinese
ESL students, reimagining a Terry Gross NPR interview of Gene Simmons
by substituting Gene Simmons with an AI computer, a collection of references
to flatulence in English poesy, the history of mooning, and out-of-context
comments he made as a college professor in order to clarify and expand
upon his students' writing. Nester includes photographs, illustrations,
and a time line of his inappropriate acts from birth to the present. VERDICT
Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and essays.—Mark Alan
Williams, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
"[A]
deeply funny new collection of booger-flecked nonfiction"—Drew
Toal's four-star review of How to Be Inappropriate from Time
Out New York;
full version opens in new
window
"This guy is intelligent and funny, and so is his
book."—Rod Lott, Bookgasm
Interview with Sage Cohen at Writing
the Life Poetic Zine
"Daniel Nester still isn't sure if he was a starving artist that
one time"—interview for The
L Magazine Online Questionnaire for Writer Types
"Throughout the book, Nester has a self-deprecating charm that makes
his writing seem like he’s just hanging out with you, telling you
a good story. Whether it’s recounting the time he moved in next
door to an ex-girlfriend while living in New York (“The Puerto Rican
Lockhorns Reunion”) or detailing his adventures in self-tanning
(“Yes I Tan”) Nester is funny, but never mean. Indeed, even
when he could go for the jugular in two of the finest pieces in the book,
he instead remains an observer, allowing the laughs to emerge from his
subject’s behavior rather than any snarky remark he could have come
up with."—Scott Malchus, Popdose
Tamara Sellman's "Quick Q&A" at Writer's
Rainbow
"He's
annoying."—The New York Times
"Handmade for frat-boys-turned-English majors"—Vol.
1
"Too much information" should be the tagline for this
debut collection of humorous nonfiction pieces from Daniel Nester...Told
through a series of essays, lists, rants, play scripts, and profiles,
this part-memoir, part-random collection of nonsense is an entertaining
look at defying the conventions of appropriate behavior."—The
Daily Beast, Hot Reads listing
Interview with Kim Clune's BrainDrain
Review by Teresa Farrell in the Saint Rose Chronicle
"Who Farted?" profile by Cecilia Martinez, Metroland
The Onion's AV Club mentions The How to Be Inappropriate
whoopee cushion, mentioned
in "The year in swag: 27 ridiculous promotional items we received
in 2009"
The cover of How to Be Inappropriate makes it own press
in The
Huffington Post (17 Coolest Book Covers of 2009), The
Book Design Review
Advance praise for The History of My World Tonight
With the publication of The History of My World Tonight,
Daniel Nester has proven that he’s an absolute master of what he
does; and what he does is dazzle us repeatedly with his elegant, prickly,
and wickedly penetrating poems. Reading him is not unlike the greatness
of discovering an eagle in a gift bag on your way home from a party: it’s
not just great, it’s super freaky great.—Todd Colby
In The History of My World Tonight, Daniel
Nester re-envisions The Beach Boys, The Brady Bunch, and the Bible. He
takes on the Munchkins, Montale, Monet, and masturbation. But that’s
just the beginning. In these intimate confessional and experimental poems,
Nester delivers a complex psyche along with deadpan social commentary.
This is an engagingly funny and tender book.—Denise Duhamel
We have in Daniel Nester a poet who speaks the language
of the common man and woman—well, that is, assuming the common man
and woman were gifted with an uncommonly over-the-top sense of humor and
an entirely personal sense of what Being a Poet Means to Me. Nester’s
working it out here, and it’s a good thing too. Somebody, in this
Age of Various Pretentious Schools of Poetry, needs to cut through the
shit and clarify why anyone would want to read or write poems at this
point in history. And Nester, with his well-documented pop culture leanings
and his not-so-well-documented soul-searching, is just the man for the
job.—Jonah Winter
Reviews of God Save My Queen and God
Save My Queen II
These two books are absolutely fantastic ... raises the profile of obsessive
record collectors from nerd to artiste while simultaneously creating a
genre of poetry where a new word for ultra-nerd needs to be created to
describe the authorship. The first volume features one short poem for
every track on every major Queen LP. As the book explores sexuality, humanity
and vulnerability the lyrical text confusingly shifts from Nester’s
personal biography to the exploits of Mercury and May in a haze of poetics
where it doesn’t matter what or who he’s talking about. ...
To bring this point home the second volume is a track by track series
of poems covering obscure Queen albums, solo work and hidden CD tracks,
thus, even the fellow fans who were able to recall every Queen track and
perhaps relate them to the poems in book one is left headscratching by
this volume. These books are as beautiful as fat bottomed girls on bicycles.—Roctober
"Nester's method considers a serious fan's bliss impeccably ... Nester's
best poems consider the homosexual allure of the band's late singer, Freddie
Mercury, describing Mercury's gestures, phrasing and lifestyle with aplomb...vainglorious
pomposity..."—Ken Tucker, The New York Times Book Review
Sean Thomas Dougherty, American Book Review; opens in new
window
David Barringer, Word
Riot
Gabriel Welsch, small
spiral notebook
Roundtable discussion in Bookninja
with Bookninja's Peter Darbyshire and George Murray along with The Pursuit
of Happiness's Moe Berg
Peter Conners, Double
Room
Tom Nissley, The
Stranger, Seattle
Whitey Houston, Vue
Weekly, Edmonton, Canada
Janine Arman, Clamor; opens in new
window
Ross Martin, Crossroads: The Journal of the Poetry Society of America;
opens in new
window
Henry Yu, MAXIMUMROCKNROLL; opens in new
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J. Thomas Burch, Esq., Slugmag, Salt Lake City; opens in new
window
Michael Basinski, The
Hold
Gustavo Zapico, Espacio3, Spain; opens in new
window
Other press and mentions.
Maple Shade Progress, my hometown newspaper; opens in
new
window
Alli Marshall, "Tales from the cryptic," Mountain Xpress,
Asheville, NC; opens in new
window
"Nobody writes rock geek poetry like Daniel Nester."—Jessa
Crispin, Bookslut
"[A] very funny blend of music biography and personal reflection
which demonstrates that, if explained coherently and in sufficient detail,
a fanatical obsession with a rock band can seem almost rational. Almost."—Jesse
Delaney, Philadelphia City Paper
Matthew Webster, "Queen aficionado, poet ready to rock HUB,"
The Daily Collegian, Penn State University [pdf
file]
"Note to those Readers who still want to believe in devotional verse;
for those who seek a cure for a spirit sunk under undifferentiated elegance:
Take [Daniel] Nester’s God Save My Queen and God Save
My Queen II and Reader, write me in the morning."—Ray
McDaniel, Constant Critic
"[A] very funny blend of music biography and personal reflection
which demonstrates that, if explained coherently and in sufficient detail,
a fanatical obsession with a rock band can seem almost rational. Almost."—Jesse
Delaney, Philadelphia City Paper
Rocking Freddie Mercury-oriented listing in the Chicago Reader;
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window
Listing in "Voice Choices," Village Voice; opens in
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window
Interviews.
Jamie Schwartz, CLMP Literary Magazine and Press Directory, 2005
[new
window]
Didi Menendez, MiPoesias,
2004
Ryan Robert Mullen, Word
Riot, 2004. The 'well-kept hockey mullet' interview
Chris Gage, Gothamist,
2004
Talking
About, Queens Public Television, 2004; real
audio stream
Sound
Affects, VH1 series, Ondi Timoner director, aired 2003
Ross Martin, Nerve, 2003 [for adults only] [new
window]
Kenan Herbert, Gigantic,
2003
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