In my first three books I bring together moments from the past and present. The gelato I’m eating at Nuovo Fiore in Rimini, Italy, reminds me of the Baskin Robbins ice cream I ate in Ypsilanti, Michigan, when I was in college, which reminds me of the ice cream I ate at Mooney’s in Saginaw, Michigan, when I was a kid. It’s a pleasure to connect the dots, thinking about where I am and where I came from. In contrast, The Freeland Years focuses on the small town where I grew up. The stories I tell in this book are about formative years, coming of age in the seductive mayhem of the 60’s. (Coming Feb 2022)
About the author
Rick Bailey has written three collections of essays. Married to an Italian immigrant, in 42 years of marriage he learned the language and food of Italy, leading slow-travel excursions to Italy focused on local culture and heroic eating. He and his wife divide their time between Michigan and the Republic of San Marino.
Rick’s books are available here:
Support your local bookstores. Pages Literati Brilliant Books McKean and Eakins
Order onine at University of Nebraska Press Amazon Barnes and Noble Indiebound.
Click here to request a free review copy of Tumbling Up. (Coming soon)
Vote to support your local library.
Also by Rick Bailey
Get Thee to a Bakery
In his new book Rick Bailey returns to familiar subjects: home, family, food, health, travel, technology, finding humor in the minute details of everyday life. Whose idea was pumpkin pie? How do you get rid of ear worm? Why do Americans smile so much? Is that a velociraptor’s footprint? Are we in the midst of a great bug die-off? In small nibbles, these essays will entertain as you read sitting pool- or beach-side, enjoying your morning coffee, relaxing in bed before drifting off to sleep.
The Enjoy Agenda at Home and Abroad
“Rick Bailey recreates for us what Virginia Woolf calls moments of being,” writes Eileen Pollack, author of The Only Woman in the Room, “those bright bursts of beauty, loss, communion, and bewilderment that constitute a life.” In these essays he finds humor in a variety of subjects: mindfulness and his half-hearted attempt to lower his blood pressure, the prospect of an iSmell app and the scent of outer space (burnt steak, hot metal, welding fumes), the pros and cons of milk substitutes, going full chopstick in Shanghai, and the limits of his spoken Italian.
American English, Italian Chocolate
“The essays read like the best of short stories: their significance extends beyond what is on the page. Bailey demonstrates a genius for locating a telling detail and employing it sparingly to evoke a setting or character trait, keeping the writing concise and the pace swift.” Publishers Weekly. He travels all night from Michigan to New Jersey to attend the funeral of a college friend dead of AIDS. After a vertiginous climb, he staggers in flipflops across the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In a trattoria above the Adriatic he ruminates on the history and glories of beans. He ruminates on the importance of feet.
