Benjamin's Mess

David Benjamin’s anthology, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought, won the 2019 NYC Big Book Award as the year’s Best Essay Collection. In this sequel … 

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.

David Benjamin began his career as a storyteller in Mrs. Poss’ second-grade class at St. Mary’s School in Tomah, Wisconsin. His fictional memoir, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked, originally published by Random House, was reprinted by Last Kid Books in 2019. His Last Kid Books include a collection of his essays, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought, two  short story anthologies, The Melting Grandmother and Other Short Works and Christmas in a Jugular Vein and sixteen novels, Three’s a Crowd, A Sunday Kind of Love, Summer of ’68, Skulduggery in the Latin Quarter, Black Dragon, They Shot Kennedy, Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love, Witness to the Crucifixion, Choose Moose, Bistro Nights, The Voice of the Dog and Benjamin’s Jim Otis mystery series, Jailbait, Bastard’s Bluff, Woman Trouble, Dead Shot and Cheat. As a journalist, Benjamin has edited newspapers, published and edited several magazines, and authored SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport.

Since its launch in 2019, Benjamin’s publishing imprint, Last Kid Books, has won more than forty independent-press awards. These include, for They Shot Kennedy, the Midwest Book Awards’ 2021 grand prize for literary/historical/contemporary fiction, and a 2022 Silver Medal for Humor to Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s prestigious Benjamin Franklin Awards.

Benjamin and his wife, Junko Yoshida, have been married for ages. They live sometimes in Madison, Wis., and the rest of the time in Paris.