Emergency Pizza Ordering 911

A very funny, behind-the-scenes tell-all guidebook about fast-food pizzeria culture.

Top social media influencers like Vito Iacopelli (pizza dough expert) and Dave Portnoy (“One-Bite Pizza Reviews”) have made the popular culinary dominance of pizza reign supreme. And first-time author Tricia Wood can be added to the list as a “Literary Pizza Influencer,” as her book Emergency Pizza Ordering 911 offers a wholly unique take on fast-food-service aspects of this once humble, now ubiquitous Neapolitan delicacy whose fatty, flavorful versatility can trigger brain cravings.

 

With laser-focus and razor-sharp wit, Wood, a self-proclaimed “perfectionist” pizzamaker, shares her 20+ years of experience working in the often “bizarre and unpredictable,” fast-paced trenches of Papa’s Pizza in North Philadelphia: “My work life has become a battle between my desire to please my customers and my need to maintain order and sanity in the kitchen.”  Not an easy task!

 

In lively, easy-to-read prose, Wood shares stories of the chaos and comedy of often-demanding (incessantly eccentric) customers. This includes geometric dilemmas of multi-ingredient-topped pizza pies and how some “spout off their orders like they are reciting Shakespeare and expect us to catch every word.” Wood details “outrageous” culinary requests from intricate substitutions, convoluted plate-sharing, and ordering items like loaded French fries topped with pineapple and pepperoni? And why does silverware often go missing?

 

There are also sections on the “proper” way to place orders and register complaints; the etiquette of tipping; and frustrations with delivery situations—navigating dark, obstacle-course-like, snowed-in driveways; battling overly zealous pets; and price-hikers like GrubHub and DoorDash (“These guys are like the annoying cousins who show up at every family gathering and somehow manage to eat all the food without bringing anything to the table”) as they rake in a 30% profit from restaurants.

Wood--a hard-working, dedicated, unsung hero--demonstrates the joys, challenges, and absurdities of fast-food service culture that caters to customers, some of whom have “zero appreciation for the unique and honorable art of pizza making.” However, Wood’s entertaining, comprehensive insider’s literary guide is truly enlightening—and should be required reading for anyone who avails themselves of (or works within) the food service industry. 

“Emergency Pizza Ordering 911”: Ordering Pizza Without Annoying Us by Tricia Wood

Independently published, $10.99 paperback, 9798330608508 / 9798300952501, 78 pages

Publication Date: November 22, 2024

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

Learn more about author (and pizza maker) Tricia Wood, link HERE

Across the Board: How Games Make Us Human

A playfully entertaining, meticulously researched history that examines the appeal of board games.

With great wit and insight, Tim Clare--writer, poet, and podcaster--presents a playful, in-depth examination into the foundational appeal of board games throughout the ages.

 

Games offer fun entertainment and also train people to better navigate human relationships and the ups and downs of life. According to philosopher C. Thi Nyugen, games also offer a “motivational inversion of ordinary life,” encouraging alternate modes of behavior. People become freed of socialized constraints and commonplace rules of life are suspended, along with expectations about how to behave.  This deviation becomes a welcome subversion—as it has for centuries.

 

Clare’s thoroughly researched narrative demonstrates how, in every civilization of human history, board games have built and changed the world. People have been using tablets as boards, rolling dice, and moving little tokens, including dog and pig pieces, dating back five millennia as was unearthed in an archeological dig in Turkey. An excavated Egyptian grave from 3800-3500 BCE uncovered a gaming board and cube pieces—apparently placed there for the deceased’s amusement in the afterlife. And a thousand years later, the long-known Game of Ur was said to be introduced around the time of Jesus Christ. In China, circa 221-206 BCE, dice were even used to “gamble and plumb the mysteries of fate” as evidenced via diviner’s boards used via I-Ching.

 

The history is long and fascinates. Clare, a self-proclaimed “nerdy enthusiast” who has always held great affection for tabletop games, passionately shows the many ways they bridge the gap between worlds and people. From early childhood to senior years, game playing pervades places from pubs to casinos, schools to care homes. Nowadays, games even proliferate via smartphone apps. Through in-depth, well-organized chapters, Clare analyzes historical, sociological, and psychological aspects and delves into the nuances of a wide-array of examples from checkers to tic-tac-toe, chess to Uno, Monopoly to Pokémon.

 

Clare (The Ice House, Coward) firmly believes that games grant people permission to “step out of the swirling, intimidating confusion of reality into something…more manageable.” Thanks to the richly entertaining history and ideas put forth by Clare, game aficionados and readers alike will be enchantingly transported by this narrative that offers another enriching avenue of pleasurable escape from life.  

 

Across the Board: How Games Make Us Human by Tim Clare

Abrams Press, $28.00 hardcover, 9781419780561, 240 pages

Publication Date: May 6, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org link HERE

 

Link HERE to learn more about author Tim Clare

 

A Better Ending

A compulsively readable true crime story about a brother’s research into the mysterious life and death of his sister who supposedly killed herself in 1974.

With shrewd and calculating investigative skill, first time author, James Whitfield Thomson intimately explores the tragic, sudden death of his sister and how her death impacted the fate of his family and his own life in his spellbinding memoir, A Better Ending. 

Thomson’s sister Eileen, the youngest of three siblings, was 15 months younger than the author. She was always “bright and bubbly.” However, in 1974, 27-year-old, married and childless Eileen, shot herself—what was deemed a self-inflicted firearm wound to her heart. Her husband, Vic, her high school sweetheart--a policeman in San Bernardino, Calif.--was home at the time of the shooting. Due to the shattering nature of the family’s catatonic-like grief, and the fact that Vic was a police officer and his mother was also “the best friend” (of Thomson’s mother, the family took, as gospel, Vic’s version of events and official police statements regarding Eileen’s deemed suicide.

 

Decades later, after his parents and his only remaining sibling, a brother, had all died, Thomson felt supernaturally compelled to revisit Eileen’s death. (Thomson, an aspiring writer, initially set out to fictionalize Eileen’s story. But while digging for details, he unearthed unsettling discrepancies in the official narrative. Thomson decided to hire a private detective and chose to write Eileen’s story from his own personal perspective.

 

Eileen was rarely spoken of after her death, as the Thomson family was overwhelmed with sadness and guilt for not “having saved” her. But Eileen’s presence becomes palpable again when Thomson and the private investigator evaluate police and ballistic reports, cull witness testimonies, and interview relatives, friends, and coworkers of Eileen’s to gain more insight. Over the course of many years, Thomson unearths harrowing, conflicting details that reveal questionable gaps in the official story and “choppy, slipshod and misdirected” evidence collection and police reporting. All of this calls into question the actual nature of Eileen’s death while raising suspicions about Vic. Thomson’s labyrinthine quest to find the truth eerily coalesces in 2005, when he has a sit-down meeting with his now estranged, thrice-married brother-in-law.

 

Thomson’s meticulously recreated timeline perfects an emotionally intensifying chronology that probes a dark, suspenseful--chillingly sad--story. In the end, the arduous path that Thomson travels to unravel the mystery of his sister’s life and ineffable death urges him toward enlightenment, acceptance, and healing.

 

A Better Ending: A Brother’s Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth About His Sister’s Death by James Whitfield Thomson

Avid Reader Press/Simon and Schuster, $28.99 hardcover, 304 pages, 9781668062869

Publishing Date: March 25, 2025

Purchase this title on Bookshop.org

 

A condensed version of this review was published on Shelf Awareness (March 28, 2025). Link HERE to read that review.

 

The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

The remarkable story of a centenarian who lived through decades of American history and forged a life that will greatly inspire others.

In 2007, long time, Washington Post columnist, David Von Drehle, and his wife, tired of the “hassles of urban parenting,” uprooted their children, and moved from Washington DC to the suburbs of Kansas City, Mo. One day, Von Drehle spied a neighbor across the street washing his car in the August heat. That man was 102-year-old Charlie White, self-made, “hail and sturdy and razor-sharp,” who would become a very good friend of Von Drehle—and an influence so profound that he inspired The Book of Charlie, a splendidly woven, inspirational memoir than explores the meaning of life and the resilience of the human spirit.

Over the course of seven years, Von Drehle became fascinated by Charlie and his history. He was born when William Howard Taft was president, and he experienced life before the existence of highways, radio, movies, even penicillin. Whip-smart, independent, and crafty, Charlie grew up with four siblings, and a family that accommodated his father, a Christian pastor—who died at the age of 42 in a freak accident when Charlie was eight. The tragedy forged an indomitable, stoic resourcefulness in Charlie. He had a deeply rewarding career as a doctor, as well as marriages, children, and familial challenges. He chose not to dwell on unhappiness. He understood and accepted that, “Every life is a mixture of comedy and tragedy, joy and sorrow, daring and fear,” and barreled on.

Charlie made an art out of living; in much the same way as Von Drehle (Rise to Greatness; Triangle: The Fire that Changed America)--with elegance, care, respect, and admiration--makes art out of Charlie’s life story.

The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man by David Von Drehle

Simon & Schuster, $26.00 hardcover, 9781476773926, 208 pages

Publishing Date: May 26, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (May 1, 2023), link HERE

NOTE: To read this review, the original long form review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (March 30, 2023), link HERE

Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls and Other Lies

A collection of powerful essays--filtered through the traditions of a Judaic perspective--that shed light into the life of a writer/journalist and her complicated relationship to family.

Departure Stories by Elisa Bernick--a writer/journalist from Minnesota--is an inviting, deeply poignant first memoir that offers an intergenerational smorgasbord of well-balanced, well-portioned personal stories, anecdotes, jokes, Jewish history and heritage—and insight.

Growing up in white, Christian, New Hope, Minn.--a suburb of St. Paul--during the tumultuous 1960 and 1970s, Bernick was basically well-assimilated, but always felt “different.” It’s these glimpses of alienation--along with episodes of "Midwestern antisemitism" and a striving to be like others--that set the foundation of this memory-driven narrative. Short chapters weave together fascinating personal stories peppered with remembrances of her ancestors, grandparents and parents. Spiritual aspects of Judaism are largely absent from the book. However, traditions of Jewishness--along with humor--pervade the entirety of the literary landscape. Her mother, Arlene, with blazing red hair, was a fiery--dynamic, yet difficult--presence. Stricken by mental illness, Arlene’s abusive volatility pervaded the folds of family—along with Bernick’s own experiences and rebellions. The emotions generated from such incidents--however sad and burdensome--ground Bernick. They ultimately shape her personality, her sensibilities, her fate and how she has thus, lived a life trying always to understand.

Identity--and Bernick’s search for it--is forefront. There are many telling stories, but the most pivotal stems from Bernick as a rebellious five-year-old: she ran away from home (rode a bus for hours) and upon her return, faced a harsh berating from her mother. This incident becomes a larger metaphor—Bernick continually trying to escape “home,” to keep an emotional distance from the deep-rooted tendrils of family, yet always being drawn back beyond the boundaries of its angering influence.

The story of her relationship to her family eventually comes full circle delivering a poignant conclusion. Older, wiser and more deeply enlightened Bernick (The Family Sabbatical Handbook) and her easy-going narrative style--her regaling readers with evolved consciousness and reinterpreting memories 50-years in the making--ultimately coalesce, granting Bernick enlightenment, while also making the world, via Departure Stories, a better place.

Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls by Elisa Bernick

Indiana University Press, $22.00 paperback, 9780253064073, 246 pages

Publication Date: October 4, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

The Year of the Horses

An honest, resolute memoir that details how a writer suffering an existential crisis found healing and salvation in her passion for horses.

Novelist and writing guru Courtney Maum takes readers on a candid, deeply moving journey that details how she found her way out of a labyrinth of depression by rekindling her passion for horses. 

By her 35th birthday, Maum (Before and After the Book Deal; Costalegre) was a successful novelist, working on her second book. She was at her happiest--a beloved wife and doting mother of a beautiful baby girl, Nina. She and her equally creative filmmaker husband had moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., into a fixer-upper house they bought in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. But when Nina turned two, something indefinable manifested in Maum--an existential crisis. Maum was deluged with roiling feelings that stalled her writing, plagued her with insomnia and provoked a general feeling of emotional malaise. A non-life-threatening car crash sustained with her husband and daughter "was a match to the depression" that would all-out engulf her. However, the accident proved a necessary jolt that sent Maum on a journey to reassess her life and decipher what might bring her a sense of peace and joy, and restore her equilibrium.

In therapy, Maum mined her past, recognizing how she missed her affinity and fascination for horses, starting when she was a child with a pony, boarded in a barn near her family's Greenwich, Conn., home. Maum's journey of healing and salvation in reconnecting to equine culture is wittily engaging and uncompromisingly forthright. She confronts the past, while also braiding in delightful flourishes regarding the metaphorical meanings of horses and the universal role they have played throughout history and in the arts.

 The Year of the Horses: A Memoir by Courtney Maum

Tin House Books, $27.95 hardcover, 9781953534156, 416 pages

Publication Date: April 19, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (May 3, 2022), link HERE

 

To read the longer form of this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (March 22, 2022), link HERE

Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family

In this inspiring true story, a severely disabled rescue dog positively changes the life of one veterinarian and the world.

Sometimes, the little things in life have the power to change everything. Such was the case with Connecticut veterinarian Melissa Shapiro, who was asked by a local animal rescue organization to foster a barely two-pound puppy that was deaf, blind and morbidly skittish.

 

Piglet--named because of his pink coloring--was added to the family pack that included Shapiro's husband, three college-aged kids and six other dogs. Through weeks of trying to calm and stabilize the traumatized little puppy, Shapiro provided canine comfort through lots of love, the familiarity of established routines and developing a touch-style of sign language. When it came time to release the dog from foster care, Shapiro was faced with a dilemma: Did she really want someone else taking care of a dog she and her family had fallen in love with?

 

Thus, Shapiro embarked on a new chapter where she adopted Piglet and decided to share him--and the lessons of his life--with the world. His popularity soared on social media, where he raised awareness about special needs rescue organizations and other animal causes. This later led to Shapiro establishing an educational outreach program where Piglet--severely disabled, yet a joy-filled, loving teacher--helped children learn how to accept and work through life challenges.

 

Shapiro's inspirational memoir--candid details of her veterinary career, her family, lovable Piglet and his incredibly sweet, resilient spirit--will win hearts.

 

Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family by Melissa Shapiro, DVM; Mim Eichler Rivas

Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), $26.00 hardcover, 9781982167165, 320 pages

Publication Date: August 3, 2021

 

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 6, 2021), link HERE

Three Dreamers: A Memoir of Family

An incredibly moving memoir about three women who greatly influenced the life of notable suspense novelist and screenwriter Lorenzo Carcaterra.

Suspense novelist and screenwriter Lorenzo Carcaterra (Payback; Sleepers) shares an intimate, true story about three, strong-willed, determined women who "saved" his life. Carcaterra--"the son of an ex-con and a housewife who spoke only Italian [who] grew up in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan"--was raised watching his mother trapped in an abusive, loveless, impoverished marriage to a man who had murdered his first wife. When he was 14, Carcaterra's mother sent him to Ischia, Italy, to spend the summer with his maternal grandmother, Nonna Maria, and other relatives. The trip proved to be a watershed.

Nonna Maria--wise, dignified and of great resilience--becomes a bedrock, championing her sensitive grandson, who has storytelling aspirations. Upon returning to the U.S., Carcaterra grows determined to forge a writing career, though his mother, Raffaela, belittles his goal. Steeped in misery, Raffaela--a widow whose second marriage is to Carcaterra's volatile father--often resents her son for being his bullying father's offspring. Dutiful, devoted Carcaterra, however, stands by his mother through some cruel, searing rejections. When Carcaterra meets Susan, an editor and coworker at the New York Daily News, he finds a soulmate whose love and support help turn the tide. Carcaterra finally launches his novel-writing career and the couple build a beautiful, sadly shortened, life together.

Many heart-wrenching incidents pervade the traumatic landscape of Carcaterra's life. But the richness of his forthright storytelling gives tender form to sadness and loss, shaping it into a deeply moving narrative about hard-fought familial love and forgiveness.

 

Three Dreamers: A Memoir of Family by Lorenzo Carcaterra

Ballantine Books, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780593156711, 240 pages

Publication Date: April 26, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 30, 2021), link HERE

The Way I Heard It

Mike Rowe, of ‘Dirty Jobs’ fame, has written a book…and it’s a good one! It's both clever and greatly entertaining. Rowe blends the story of his own life with his exploration of the lives of other notables. This is the perfect read to take with you on the go—short chapters for when you’ve got only a few minutes to escape into a good book!

Popular personality Mike Rowe cleverly spins and unravels mysteries about notable public figures, while sharing stories of his own life.

Television host, narrator, actor, producer and product pitchman, Mike Rowe presents 35 cleverly written short mysteries about public figures and notables that are culled from his podcast, The Way I Heard It. Between the mysteries, Rowe, with his signature humor and dry wit, ties in entertaining anecdotes about his own life--childhood adventures while growing up in a tight-knit Baltimore family; his mentors and his girlfriends; his penchant for Travis McGee novels; and his many comical experiences on the winding, bumpy road to success.

Rowe has hosted several offbeat shows on networks such as QVC, the Science Channel, CNN and National Geographic. He's most known for Dirty Jobs, where he performed 300 messy occupational duties alongside regular, hardworking employees. Rowe's affinity for the programs of radio broadcaster Paul Harvey served as inspiration for his creation of the mysteries of the book--what he pitches as "some true stories you probably don't know about some famous people you probably do." This includes obscure facts about presidents, musicians, writers, sports figures and more--the living and the dead--as well as places and events.

Readers will be greatly amused and intrigued by Rowe's presentation of each story. He offers just enough information and clues to keep readers engrossed--and guessing--about the who or what of each subject before he delivers surprising twists and reveals the mysterious identity at each story's conclusion. For all the jobs Mike Rowe has held in his storied career, writing might just prove to be his forte.

The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe

Gallery Books, $28.00 Hardcover, 9781982130855, 272 pages

Publication Date: October 15, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 25, 2019), link HERE