Bistro Bookers
Join us on Tuesday, February 18, 2025 @ 4:00 P.M.
Book Title: The Anatomy of a Pummeled Life
Author: Peter Talty
Discussed by: Author Peter Talty
Book Summary: This is the true story of a man’s life that was remarkable in terms of how tragic it was. I know this is true because he was my youngest brother Pat or Patrick. We were close until the last five or so years of his life when we became estranged. I now understand why he stopped calling or emailing me, but it was through the research and the writing of this book about Pat’s difficult life that I now get it. Simply stated, I was not my brother’s keeper. Instead, I was one of his many pummelers.
Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 @ 4:00 PM
Venue:
Audubon Senior Center
370 John James Audubon Parkway
Amherst NY 14228
You MUST reserve your seat by 3:00 PM on the Friday prior for this event by calling 716-636-3051 and providing your name and phone number. If you call to reserve for more than one person, you must provide each person’s name and phone number.
*Suggested donation of $2 per person is greatly appreciated. Your donation helps Bistro Bookers to continue to hold these reviews and donate back to our community literacy programs. Your donation allows us to purchase the reviewers book if necessary and give them a gift for their time.*
** Masks are encouraged at this time please make sure to bring yours just in case.
** RESCHEDULED from January 2025 – Join us on Tuesday, March 4, 2025 @ 4 PM **
Book Title: The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express: 10 Stories and over a Century of Sketches
Author: Thomas J. Reigstad
Discussed by: Author Thomas J. Reigstad
*** The author will be selling and autographing his book: hardcover $25, softcover $20. Cash and check accepted.
Book Summary: Coming to Buffalo as a young man with a background as an itinerant printer’s apprentice, newspaper reporter and popular lecturer Mark Twain began his brief but impactful tenure at the Buffalo Express in 1869. One of his first decisions as managing editor was to accompany each of his Saturday feature stories with an illustration. But the sketches didn’t stop there. For more than a century, illustrators have kept coming back to Twain’s original Express stories to add their own drawings to the humorist’s legacy.
The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express collects ten feature stories published by Twain in the Buffalo Express during his year-long tenure at the publication, accompanied by illustrations drawn by six artists over a span of nearly 115 years alongside insightful analysis from author and Twain scholar Thomas J. Reigstad. There is the drawing by Twain himself, created in 1870; originals by Express staff artist John Harrison Mills in the fall of 1869; and those featured alongside his Express stories by his favorite contemporary illustrator, True Williams, who would be the principal illustrator of Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Sketches New and Old. This book also includes 11 humorous illustrations created by Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Tom Toles for a 1978 Buffalo Courier-Express Sunday Magazine series reprinted here for the first time, as well as a cartoon drawn in 1983 for the Mark Twain Journal by Bill Watterson, the cartoonist and author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Finally, this volume contains two 21st-century caricatures of Twain, one as he looked in his early 30s in Buffalo and a second of him decades later as a literary lion, drawn by cartoonist Adam Zyglis—another Pulitzer Prize–winner—for The Buffalo News.
Ranging from his first impression of Niagara Falls to the deteriorating condition of a cemetery in his Buffalo neighborhood to more satirical statements on the state of American journalism, Twain’s Buffalo Express stories from 1869 and 1870 stand the test of time. But their entertainment value is vastly increased when coupled with visual interpretations provided by talented illustrators (including Twain himself) of yesterday and today.
Date: Tuesday, March 4 2025 @ 4:00 PM
Venue:
Audubon Senior Center
370 John James Audubon Parkway
Amherst NY 14228
You MUST reserve your seat by 3:00 PM on the Friday prior for this event by calling 716-636-3051 and providing your name and phone number. If you call to reserve for more than one person, you must provide each person’s name and phone number.
*Suggested donation of $2 per person is greatly appreciated. Your donation helps Bistro Bookers to continue to hold these reviews and donate back to our community literacy programs. Your donation allows us to purchase the reviewers book if necessary and give them a gift for their time.*
** Masks are encouraged at this time please make sure to bring yours just in case.
Join us on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 @ 4:00 P.M.
Book Title: Cold Heart: The Great Unsolved Mystery of Turn of the Century Buffalo
Author: Kimberly Tilley
Discussed by: Lissa Redmond, retired Buffalo homicide detective
Book Summary: The murder of Ed Burdick is the true story of the great unsolved mystery of turn of the century Buffalo and a terrible wrong that was never put right.
1903, Buffalo, New York. Ed Burdick, a wealthy manufacturer known for his kindness and generosity, and his wife Alice had a life few could imagine. The couple had three lovely daughters, a beautiful home, and they were fixtures in the elite Elmwood Avenue set. Despite rumors of trouble in the Burdick marriage, few believed it until Ed ordered his wife out of their home and filed for divorce. The whispers about their separation abruptly ended when Ed Burdick was found murdered in his den while his family slept upstairs. The police found a mosaic of conflicting clues at the crime scene. The investigation uncovered shocking information about the Buffalo tycoon's life, and no shortage of suspects with a motive for murder.
Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 @ 4:00 PM
Venue:
Audubon Senior Center
370 John James Audubon Parkway
Amherst NY 14228
You MUST reserve your seat by 3:00 PM on the Friday prior for this event by calling 716-636-3051 and providing your name and phone number. If you call to reserve for more than one person, you must provide each person’s name and phone number.
*Suggested donation of $2 per person is greatly appreciated. Your donation helps Bistro Bookers to continue to hold these reviews and donate back to our community literacy programs. Your donation allows us to purchase the reviewers book if necessary and give them a gift for their time.*
** Masks are encouraged at this time please make sure to bring yours just in case.