Picture of author.

Roy Blount, Jr.

Author of Alphabet Juice

38+ Works 2,551 Members 57 Reviews 3 Favorited

About the Author

Roy Blount, Jr., has written for the Atlantic Monthly since 1981.
Image credit: Credit: Larry D. Moore, 2007 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas

Series

Works by Roy Blount, Jr.

Alphabet Juice (2008) 521 copies, 21 reviews
If Only You Knew How Much I Smell You: True Portraits of Dogs (1998) — Author — 242 copies, 6 reviews
Robert E. Lee (2003) 222 copies, 4 reviews
Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South (2007) 165 copies, 2 reviews
Feet on the Street (2005) 117 copies, 3 reviews
Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story (1998) 116 copies, 3 reviews
Now, Where Were We? (1989) 108 copies, 1 review
Alphabetter Juice: or, The Joy of Text (2011) 102 copies, 4 reviews
I Am Puppy Hear Me Yap: The Ages of Dog (2000) — Author — 98 copies
Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor (1994) 87 copies, 1 review
I am the cat, don't forget that (2004) — Author — 85 copies, 2 reviews
First Hubby (1990) 75 copies, 1 review
Not Exactly What I Had in Mind (1985) — Author — 72 copies

Associated Works

Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (2001) — Contributor — 727 copies, 6 reviews
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 461 copies, 4 reviews
A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage (2001) — Foreword, some editions — 446 copies, 10 reviews
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories (1986) — Contributor — 371 copies, 6 reviews
Baseball: A Literary Anthology (2002) — Contributor — 346 copies, 4 reviews
The Best of Modern Humor (1983) — Contributor — 301 copies, 2 reviews
A Treasury of Mark Twain (1999) — Introduction — 236 copies, 1 review
Russell Baker's Book of American Humor (1993) — Contributor — 212 copies
The Best American Essays 1997 (1997) — Contributor — 159 copies, 1 review
The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work (2010) — Contributor — 145 copies, 1 review
Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100 (2011) — Contributor — 121 copies, 3 reviews
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! The Oddly Informative News Quiz (2002) — Foreword — 75 copies, 2 reviews
O Holy Cow! : The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto (1993) — Introduction — 71 copies, 1 review
The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink (2012) — Contributor — 65 copies, 1 review
Southern Dogs and Their People (2000) — Contributor — 40 copies
Antaeus No. 61, Autumn 1988 - Journals, Notebooks & Diaries (1988) — Contributor — 36 copies, 2 reviews
Antaeus No. 75/76, Autumn 1994 - The Final Issue (1994) — Contributor — 34 copies
New Stories from the South 2003: The Year's Best (2003) — Preface — 32 copies
The Quotable Baseball Fanatic (2000) — Foreword — 30 copies
Wait Wait...I'm Not Done Yet! A Memoir (2014) — Contributor — 10 copies
Playboy Magazine ~ March 1982 (1982) — Author — 2 copies

Tagged

American (38) American literature (87) animals (30) anthology (309) baseball (124) biography (76) books (46) books about books (66) cats (45) Civil War (36) collection (37) dogs (86) essays (232) fiction (301) first edition (44) Folio Society (57) hardcover (29) history (40) humor (713) language (66) Library of America (77) literary criticism (33) literature (82) LOA (29) Mark Twain (34) memoir (43) New Yorker (52) non-fiction (312) own (35) photography (52) poetry (101) read (46) reading (27) reference (28) short stories (199) signed (29) sports (65) to-read (212) unread (46) writing (51)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Blount, Roy, Jr.
Birthdate
1941-10-04
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Places of residence
Decatur, Georgia, USA
Education
Harvard University (M.A., 1964)
Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1963)
Occupations
humorist
journalist
actor
musician
Organizations
Rock Bottom Remainders (band)
Fellowship of Southern Writers
Authors Guild (president)
National Public Radio (Wait, Wait. . . Don't Tell Me)
Awards and honors
Thomas Wolfe Award (2009)
Phi Beta Kappa
Short biography
Roy Blount, Jr. says on his web site: Born to Southern parents in Indianapolis. Grew up in Decatur, Georgia. U.S. Army 1964-66. Reporter and columnist for Atlanta Journal and part-time English instructor at Georgia State College, 1966-68. Free-lance since leaving SI in 1975. Husband of painter Joan Griswold, father of social worker daughter Ennis and director-writer-actor-songwriter son Kirven (with whom he wrote and appeared in a five-minute film on extreme sports for ESPN), grandfather of of Jesse, Noah and Elsie. No pets at present, but previously dogs, cats, horse, rooster, snake, turtle, hamster, monitor lizard, parakeet and hens.

Members

Reviews

Blount really loves the Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup. I think he loves it too much to write true film criticism of it. He's adopting the tone, he's trying to make jokes...and he isn't really succeeding. I didn't learn anything new about the film, its place in the zeitgeist, its value, its skeptics. I only learned that Blount really, really, really loves Duck Soup.
 
Flagged
sparemethecensor | 3 other reviews | Jul 26, 2024 |
Fun book on word origins and trivia. A little blue humor.
 
Flagged
kslade | 3 other reviews | Jun 25, 2024 |
Life is too short to slog through all the folksy anecdotes and sports reminiscences and stream-of-consciousness ponderings to get to the nuggets of interesting history and etymology. Maybe someday I'll come back and pick at a word here and there...but I doubt it.
 
Flagged
slimikin | 20 other reviews | Mar 27, 2022 |
Fun and funny! Lovely photos with delightful annotations! A must for dog lovers! I keep extra copies to give as gifts!
 
Flagged
njcur | 5 other reviews | Jul 29, 2021 |

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Statistics

Works
38
Also by
33
Members
2,551
Popularity
#10,065
Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
57
ISBNs
107
Languages
2
Favorited
3

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